Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY, TRADE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The Hartlepools

Commander Kerans: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development, how much land remains available to his Department for industrial development; and how much was rented to industry in 1963 in the Hartlepools.

The Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Heath): There are 33 acres of land available for development at the Hartlepools on the Board of Trade's industrial estate. No Board of Trade land was separately rented to industry in 1963, but Government advance factories totalling 94,000 sq. ft. on land owned or acquired by the Board of Trade were approved for rent during the year.

Commander Kerans: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he ensure that some of the land left vacant by the rundown of Gray's Engineering Works and Shipping, part of which is owned by British Railways, is rapidly made available for industry in the not-too-distant future?

Mr. Heath: As my reply shows, we have good land already available for industrial sites there. Our main purpose must be to persuade industrialists to go to this area of development.

Commander Kerans: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he intends to build a further advance factory in the Hartlepools in 1964.

Mr. Heath: I am considering what further advance factories may be required, and I have the claims of the Hartlepools in mind.

Commander Kerans: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I am grateful for the advance factory now being leased to Messrs. Reed and Company? Will he ensure that a decision is taken at an early date on the building of a new factory? Is it not the case that, if there is an advance factory in the pipeline all the time, this acts as an incentive to get industry to an area?

Mr. Heath: I very much agree with what my hon. and gallant Friend has just said and I will certainly endeavour to obtain a speedy decision.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the first-class Report of the North-East Development Council and its Director at the quarterly meeting, showing that tremendous progress is being made? Do they also not agree that we should immediately replace a let advance factory by another?

Mr. Heath: I agree that progress in the North-East is immensely encouraging. There is much in what my hon. Friend says but, at the same time, I have to look at the country as a whole from the point of view of the progress of advance factories.

Mr. Shinwell: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in the Report, the Director and others expressed their dissatisfaction that not enough has been done? There has been some progress but a great deal more requires to be done and the Government appear to be dragging their feet.

Dame Irene Ward: You were not at the meeting.

Mr. Heath: The last thing that can be said about the Government is that they are dragging their feet. The programme outlined in the White Paper allows for sustained progress.

Scotland

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what special inducements he now proposes to apply in order to attract manufacturers of consumer durables to Scotland.

Mr. Heath: Substantial financial and fiscal inducements are already available to manufacturers of consumer durables setting up in development districts in Scotland.

Mr. Bence: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is grave concern in Scotland because the increasing prosperity and production, banner headlined in the national Press, are not being shared there? Is he further aware that the raising of the Bank Rate as applied to the need to expand capital investment is a serious setback for Scotland?

Mr. Heath: In the first three and a half years of the Local Employment Act, 1960, £21 million was offered to manufacturers on consumer durables to establish new projects in Scotland. A further £11 million was offered for expansion by manufacturers of consumer durables already there. A great deal has been offered to manufacturers, both those already there and those who might go there, and these inducements are the best in any Western industrialised country.

Mr. Bence: The right hon. Gentleman says that these are offers. What acceptances have there been?

Mr. Heath: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to have details he should put down a Question and I will give him the answer.

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what steps he is now taking to encourage industries now established in Scotland to remain there.

Mr. Heath: The comprehensive measures which the Government are taking to provide a favourable environment for industrial growth in Scotland will give the best possible encouragement to established companies to continue manufacturing there.

Mr. Bence: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the last month two well-known industrial establishments in Scotland have contracted their production? One has done so completely—the firm is folding up. The other is limiting its production and taking it back to the parent company in Italy. Will the right hon. Gentleman try to do something, particularly with the Canadian Govern-

ment, who seem to adopt serious restrictive measures on the import of many Scottish products?

Mr. Heath: We are bound to get this from time to time in the pressures of industrial change and decisions which may have to be made on the basis of commercial judgment. On the other hand, I think the hon. Gentleman knows that we have had some cases in Scotland where a firm has had to close, but a replacement has arrived in a very short time indeed because of the attractions offered by the estates in Scotland.
On the question of trade with Canada, as the House knows, I recently had conversations with the Canadian Minister of Commerce, and we are very glad to see that action has already resulted from that.

Mr. P. Williams: With regard to Board of Trade factories, whether in Scotland, in the North-East, or elsewhere——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question is confined to Scotland.

Mr. Williams: I shall confine my self to asking about Scotland. Will my right hon. Friend consider approaching the Treasury so that he may adopt a more positive policy in selling Board of Trade factories to occupants and using the cash income for financing further advance factories?

Mr. Heath: I am prepared to consider proposals from firms which are already in their factories.

Retailers' Margins

Sir K. Thompson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what estimate he has made of the rate of gross profit earned, respectively, on sugar confectionery, tobacco goods and items of stationery by a retail dealer whose turnover averages £250 per week and whose supplies come half from manufacturers and half from wholesalers.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward du Cann): In the censuses of distribution information is supplied about gross margins for different kinds of retail businesses, but not for particular commodities or for goods from particular suppliers. The average gross


margins in 1961 of retailers selling the articles named and classified as confectioners, tobacconists and newsagents was 15 per cent. of turnover for businesses with an average weekly turnover between £200 and £400.

Sir K. Thompson: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to bear in mind that tens of thousands of shopkeepers of this kind will want to be assured that as we make progress with the Resale Prices Bill their interests are being considered?

Mr. du Cann: I note what my hon. Friend has said. The Government are looking forward to a full discussion of all these matters.

Mr. H. Hynd: Does not the real solution lie in these shopkeepers trying to get a more generous profit margin from the wholesalers?

Mr. du Cann: I do not doubt that that is one point that they have in mind. On the other hand, it is true that in general they probably operate on relatively low margins by comparison with some other types of business, because they need less labour and less stock-keeping, and factors of that kind have to be taken into account.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development on what classes of goods of the £5,000 million worth of sales subject to resale price maintenance he has information on retailers' margins; and in which cases he considers them excessive.

Mr. du Cann: Statistics about margins are available and are published; but their adequacy or excessiveness cannot be determined simply by looking at the figures. Margins which are no more than adequate for some may be excessive for others. This is usually best left to the market to decide.

Mr. Digby: I thank my hon. Friend for that Answer, but is he aware that in my constituency all retailers' overheads have risen considerably, especially on account of rates?

Mr. du Cann: I note what my hon. Friend has said.

Dundee (Advance Factory)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what plans he has for the establishment of advance factory accommodation in adaptable units in the Dundee development area.

Mr. Heath: In my consideration of the need for further advance factories I have the claims of Dundee in mind.

Mr. Thomson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that recently a new enterprise which might have come to Dundee went elsewhere because of the lack of an advance factory in the city? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the Labour Government's period of office we had advance factories as a normal matter, and had great success with them? Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with this urgently and give us the chance o having small advance factories?

Mr. Heath: I have noted what the hon. Gentleman has said. If he lets me have details of this case, I shall certainly examine it.

Mr. Jay: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that he has left Dundee out of the growth areas in Scotland? Can he say whether in deciding where to put an advance factory he gives priority to growth areas or not?

Mr. Heath: No priority is given to growth areas. We have to consider the circumstances of all areas as a whole.

Buses (Sale to Cuba)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he has studied the representations sent to him by the Aberdeen Trades Council regarding Her Majesty's Government's policy on the sale of buses to Cuba, and its effect on employment in the relevant British industries; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. du Cann: No, Sir. The Board of Trade has been unable to trace the receipt of any such representations.

Mr. Hughes: May we have a clear categorical statement on the distinction which the Government draw between the export of commodities which can be used for warlike purposes in Cuba, and those which cannot be used for warlike purposes? Such a statement would have an important effect on the industrial situation in this country; it would have an important effect on the workers in the relevant industries; and it would also have an effect on the industrial situation in Cuba.

Mr. du Cann: I know that my right hon. Friend has written to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I hope that he will find the facts in that letter reassuring. The only ban on exports to Cuba is the embargo on strategic goods applied to the Sino-Soviet bloc.

Immature Scotch Whisky (Export)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development why he has refused the request of the Scotch Whisky Association to ban the export of immature Scotch whisky.

Mr. du Cann: A full explanation has been given to the Association. It is very desirable that the reputation of Scotch whisky abroad should be protected, but the proposed ban would only stop useful exports; it would not prevent immature whisky produced abroad from being described as Scotch whisky.

Mr. Lipton: The hon. Gentleman is evading the issue. Is it not stupid, as well as bad business, to spoil the high reputation of one of our best export lines by allowing poor quality stuff to be exported? Would not it be more sensible to revert to the practice which until 1954 restricted the export of immature whisky, a practice which, unfortunately, is increasing to an alarming extent at the present time?

Mr. du Cann: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that I evaded the Question at all. The fact is that the best safeguard for Scotch whisky is protection for the description "Scotch whisky". The United States already gives this protection. We are currently negotiating in the Council of Europe for the description to be given legal pro-

tection in Europe, although it is bound to take time to achieve that.
As regards the export of immature whisky, the great bulk of it goes to Sweden where it is kept for maturing.

Mr. Lipton: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Iron and Steel Tubes, Pipes and Fittings (Tariffs)

Mr. O'Malley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what is the general level of present United Kingdom tariffs on iron and steel tubes, pipes and fittings.

Mr. du Cann: The rate is 17½ or 20 per cent. The corresponding E.F.T.A. rate is 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. Imports qualifying for Commonwealth preference are duty free.

Mr. O'Malley: Are these exceptionally high tariffs imposed because British prices for these products are too high and inflexible? May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that the export of these products from France and Germany has risen much more rapidly than British exports? Is not the reason for this performance the fact that British prices are high, and that restrictive agreements have adversely affected our exports and the work available to the men in the industry?

Mr. du Cann: I would not accept the hon. Gentleman's argument. In 1962 our exports of iron and steel tubes, pipes, and fittings were equivalent to 30 per cent. of home production, whereas imports were equivalent to less than 1 per cent. of home production.
As regards tariff rates, it is always open to representative bodies of users or producers to make application to the Board of Trade for changes. We have had no such application.

Mr. Mitchison: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the object of high tariffs is to put up the price of tubes against the British consumer or to make it quite certain that Stewarts & Lloyds have enough money for political propaganda?

Mr. du Cann: With respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, I deplore the last part of his supplementary question. The fact of the matter is that the Kennedy Round is now in prospect and we have to consider our negotiating position on particular products at this time.

Mr. Jay: Does the hon. Gentleman deplore the political propaganda of Stewarts & Lloyds?

Mr. du Cann: I do not deplore the political propaganda of any concern which is anxious to defend itself against the misjudged plans of the Opposition.

Regional Planning Areas

Mr. Merlyn Rees: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will publish a provisional map of the proposed regional planning areas of the country to assist discussion on the problems involved in such demarcation, and to provide guidance to other Government Departments which, under new legislation, have to set up regional bodies.

Mr. Heath: As I explained in the debate on regional development on 3rd December, 1963, I have set up interdepartmental machinery which can provide any necessary guidance to Government Departments. I am placing in the Library a map showing the areas covered by the studies which we have completed or put in hand.

Mr. Rees: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that it would be most valuable to informed opinion outside the Government to know what the planning areas are going to be? For example, we do not know what the Yorkshire planning area is to be.
The second point that arises from that is that there is a danger of a proliferation of regional planning areas. For example, the Industrial Training Act requires regional areas. It would be an excellent thing if they were the same areas as the planning areas which the right hon. Gentleman is setting up.

Mr. Heath: These areas emerge from the studies themselves. A study may cover a different area, and what emerges from that will show the regional area required. As the House knows, we have

published those dealing with the North-East and Central Scotland, and today we are concerned with the South-East.

Industrial Design (Report)

Mr. Speir: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what proposals he has for legislation in the lifetime of the present Parliament upon the basis of the Report of the Departmental Committee on Industrial Design, Cmnd. 1808.

Mr. Heath: None, Sir.

Mr. Speir: In view of the arguments that I have put before my right hon. Friend in a letter on the subject, if and when legislation comes forward will he do his best to ensure that the very important aspect of international reciprocity is given particular consideration?

Mr. Heath: I will, indeed. The Government accept the principal recommendation; of the Committee, but at the moment I cannot give my hon. Friend a clear indication of the date of legislation.

Kirkcaldy Development District

Mr. Gourlay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development how many firm commitments have been made by industrialists to develop in the Kirkcaldy development district since 1st January, 1963; and how many jobs are likely to be provided for males and females, respectively.

Mr. Heath: Twelve, which are expected to provide about 1,850 jobs for males and
for females.

Mr. Gourlay: Is the Minister aware that nearly all those jobs are being provided in the new town of Glenrothes? Further, is he aware that in my constituency, in which about 3,000 people were unemployed last month, not a single job has been provided since it was created a development district? Will he therefore instruct his officials to advise prospective industrialists coming to that area of Fife that the same financial inducements are available in Kirkcaldy, Burntisland and Buckhaven, as exist in Glenrothes?

Mr. Heath: I take the point that the hon. Member makes about the location of these places. We have been pointing out the advantages of other places in his constituency to industrialists, but the main movement has been to this area of growth.

Mr. Gourlay: Is it not a fact that, being a new town, Glenrothes is the baby of the Government, and particularly of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and that all industrialists are being channelled to the new town rather than to existing populations where education and other services are already available?

Mr. Heath: I cannot accept the hon. Member's statement on that point. We are equally anxious that industrialists should go to other areas.

Yorkshire

Mr. Merlyn Rees: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when the White Paper for the proposed Yorkshire regional planning area will be published.

Mr. Heath: I am not yet in a position to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member on 30th January.

Mr. Rees: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that although we do not have the great problems of Scotland, the North-East Coast or Wales, there are real problems on the horizon, especially in the Sheffield area, arising from new production methods, and that it is a matter of urgency for us to know about any ideas that the right hon. Gentleman has concerning the future?

Mr. Heath: Yes, Sir. I discussed the problems when I was in the region, as the hon. Member knows. In the last five months we have published studies for the North-East, and Central Scotland, which were implemented, and there is one for the South-East which we are publishing today. We have also put in hand studies for the North-West, the Midlands and the south-west of England, and studies for Wales are under way.

Mr. Jay: What steps have the Government taken to see that the various regional plans are consistent with each other?

Mr. Heath: That will be achieved by the inter-departmental co-ordinating machinery, which is working very efficiently.

Mr. A. Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will designate the County of Yorkshire as a planning region; and, in view of the geographical position of Leeds in relation to the North-East and North-West, if he will designate Leeds as the regional centre.

Mr. Heath: For regional development purposes the North Riding of Yorkshire is included in the North-East region and it is covered by the North-East plan. I am at present considering the position of the East and West Ridings, but I do not contemplate designating Leeds or any other city as their regional centre.

Mr. Roberts: Will the Minister bear in mind that this is a serious problem? Will he consider the enormous influx of population and bear in mind that there are far too many old and decayed industries in the county and that the scale of wages paid there is not comparable with that in most other areas?

Mr. Heath: I will certainly take account of the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised. It would not be right for me to become involved in the other point made in his Question about the capital of the region.

Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to clear up the small pockets of unemployment which exist in various parts of South Yorkshire—of which he is aware, as reference has been made to them over and over again —while he is going through the long and complicated process of making Yorkshire a planning area and carrying out long-term planning?

Mr. Heath: I am aware of the problem arising from this aspect of change in South Yorkshire. It is dealt with to a certain extent by travel to work to firms at the moment in need of labour. This is a problem which will be covered by the study.

Sir Knox Cunningham: When dealing with the various regions which have been referred to today, will my hon. Friend see that the Government do not


forget the interests of that part of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall have to buy a map and give instruction in geography.

South-West (Economic Development)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development why he has given up the idea of a report on the economic development of the South-West as a whole.

Mr. du Cann: My right hon. Friend has invited the Joint Committee for the Economy of the South-West to consider, in conjuncion with the other interests concerned, the scope for studying the economic development of the south-west peninsula.

Mr. Barnett: Will the hon. Gentleman therefore deny the report which appeared in the Press to the effect that they had given up any idea of a study of the South-West as a whole?

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman turn that Question round, somehow, because it is not for the Minister to confirm or deny statements in the Press for which he is not responsible.

Mr. Barnett: Will the hon. Member confirm or deny the statement——

Mr. Speaker: Order. That will, I fear, not do.

Mr. du Cann: If it will be of any assistance to the House, and to the hon. Member, perhaps I can say that I returned only yesterday from a tour of the South-West, following the successful tour that my right hon. Friend had in the early part of January, and discussed the question of a development plan with representatives of local authorities in the area. So far as I am aware, there is every likelihood that the work that is already in hand will be continued. It is in the interests of Her Majesty's Government and of any rational appreciation of the problems of the South-West to see the original area of the study broadened. We hope that it may happen, but it is not for us to decide. As for Dorset, that is to some extent

covered by the study of the South-East, which is published today.

Mr. P. Browne: Will my hon. Friend confirm, in spite of what the Minister has said, that a regional plan for the South-West will be produced before the General Election?

Mr. du Cann: I would think that that was thoroughly unlikely. It must be so, because the putting together of a plan inevitably requires a great deal of time. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with the firm impression that I have that the economy of the South-West is very much improved as a result of measures which the Government have already been able to take.

Miss Vickers: Has the Ministry yet decided whether or not to give financial aid to the South-West Regional Committee?

Mr. du Cann: As my right hon. Friend has stated, we have already offered it.

South Africa (Supply of Arms)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development (1) what licences have been refused for the export of arms to the Republic of South Africa in consequence of the decision of Her Majesty's Government to limit the export of arms to purposes of external defence;
(2) what licences have been granted for the export of Westland Wasp antisubmarine helicopters to the South African navy.

Mr. du Cann: It is not the practice to disclose details about licence applications for the export of arms and military equipment. As regards Wasp helicopters, I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation on 2nd March to the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot).

Mr. Brockway: I thank the hon. Member for answering at the same time Question No. 41, which is quite low on the Order Paper. If it is not possible for him to give the detailed specifications of orders, can he give the number of licences which have been refused, in view of the Prime Minister's statement


that arms which can be used to further apartheid will not be supplied? In view of the fact that £90 million is to be expended on military equipment to South Africa from this country over a three-year period, cannot the hon. Gentleman at least say how much has been refused in order to prevent any oppression under the policy of apartheid?

Mr. du Cann: I am obliged for the compliment contained in the first part of the hon. Member's supplementary question. The whole House takes his point. As for the main part of the question, it has been the long-standing and well-known practice of successive Governments not to disclose details of arms exports and export licences. We believe this to be sound practice, and we do not intend to depart from it, so my answer on this question is "No". As for our policy in relation to the export of arms to South Africa, that has been clearly announced in this House and in the United Nations.

Sir T. Moore: Is my hon. Friend aware that this vendetta against our good friends in South Africa, at the behest of Ghana and others, is singularly repugnant to all fair-minded people in this country?

Mr. du Cann: I agree that it is extremely important to preserve a sense of proportion in the matter.

Mr. Gordon Walker: As the hon. Member gave us fairly close details about the export of arms to the Yemen the other day, can he say why the Government draw this sharp distinction between the kinds of arms which they will give us information about and the kinds which they will not? Can he answer the question that I asked the Price Minister the other day, whether helicopters are included in the schedule to the Simonstown Agreement on arms which we have undertaken to supply?

Mr. du Cann: The right hon. Member suggests that there is a conflict between the Answer I have given and the Answers given by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Aviation a day or two ago, but there is no conflict. As for the second part of the supplementary question, if the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to put down a Question I will do my best to answer it.

Mrs. Castle: Is not the hon. Gentleman's answer quite absurd? Is it not a fact that we have been called upon by the United Nations to uphold this arms embargo, and that we have been asked to supply information to the United Nations about the extent to which we are carrying out resolutions, some of which we have supported? How can this House know whether or not the Government are operating the policy they say they are if they refuse us information which is necessary to enable us to judge?

Mr. du Cann: I can assure the hon. Lady that the supply of the helicopters is in accordance with our policy, as stated in the United Nations.

Mr. Brockway: Will the hon. Member answer the question which I put to him? I asked whether he could give me specific details about the number of orders and whether he could state the numbers and the value those numbers represent? That would not give away any secrets or affect national security.

Mr. du Cann: The answer is "No", for the reasons which I have given.

Mr. Brockway: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall endeavour to raise this matter.

Federation of Industrial Development Associations (Deputation)

Mr. A. Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will meet an official delegation from the Federation of Industrial Development Associations to discuss industrial development in areas that have not received adequate consideration by his Department.

Mr. Heath: Yes, Sir, but I should be particularly glad if they would first send me a memorandum covering the main points which they want to discuss.

Films (First-Feature Quota)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will raise the first-feature film quota for 1964–65 to 50 per cent.

Mr. Heath: The quota for 1964 is already in force. I shall decide the


quota for 1965 in the light of the advice which I expect to receive from the Cinematograph Films Council in April.

Mr. Swingler: When considering that advice, will the right hon. Gentleman consider that recent experience seems to show that it would be perfectly practicable for the trade to fulfil a 50 per cent. quota? Is not it important that he should now take a step which would give a boost, particularly to the independent film producers, and try to maintain the expansion of the film industry?

Mr. Heath: The facts show, as the hon. Gentleman realises, that the size of the quota being fulfilled at the moment is between 45 per cent. and 50 per cent. It is the intention of the circuits that it should remain at this. I feel that there is no point in incurring the disadvantages this year which would arise from fixing a higher quota because the advantages are already there, but when it comes to April I shall consider the situation for 1965.

Dorset

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development to what extent his policy in relation to industry in Dorset is based on the grounds that the economy is flourishing, unemployment is low and that communications are under way.

Mr. du Cann: I take all material considerations into account. I am always prepared to look sympathetically at applications for industrial development certificates for projects in Dorset that cannot go to develoment districts.

Mr. Digby: Whether my hon. Friend considers that Dorset is in the North-West or the South-East—about which I am not clear from an Answer to a previous Question—is he aware that in the Report on the South-East it has received scant attention? Is he aware that we have no prospect whatever of getting new roads? In the Report on the South-East communications are mentioned as being of particular importance, but we are not getting them.

Mr. du Cann: Whether Dorset is in the South-East or the South-West, obviously it is affected by its proximity

to London, and hence there is a reference to i in the South-East study. Speaking as an hon. Member from the West Country, I regard my hon. Friend as a West Country Member also. The Minister of Transport announced in the House at the end of January that over £6 million had been spent on roads in Dorset for the five years ending 31st March, 1963. In addition five classified road schemes, valued at £265,000, have been committed by the Ministry of Transport in the current financial year. Between 1st April, 1960, and 29th February, 1964, I.D.C.s have been approved for 51 projects in Dorset.

Firms, North-East Scotland (Census of Production)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will make a statement on the result of his request to firms in North-East Scotland to complete a census of production to be completed and returned by 31st March; and how such production in those areas compares with similar production in each of the preceding 10 years.

Mr. Heath: It will be several months before enough 1963 census of production returns are received for results to be compiled. Full censuses of this kind are taken only once in five years, and separate figures for regions like North-East Scotland are not normally extracted. Employment figures show, in general, little change over the last 10 years.

Mr. Hughes: How do the Government propose to use the figures collected in this way? Is it a last-minute attempt to solve the problems of industrial unemployment in Scotland, after 12 years of failure?

Mr. Heath: No, Sir. The first census was taken in 1907.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: May I ask my right hon. Friend to what extent he considers that trade in the North-East will be damaged by the Socialist-controlled Town Council of Aberdeen's boycott of south African products?

Mr. Heath: It is a point to which my hon. Friend has drawn public attention.

Small Shopkeepers (Buying Organisations)

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will introduce legislation to give him power to assist small shopkeepers to form buying associations to enable them to get discounts comparable with those allowed to big stores and supermarkets generally; and if he will issue a leaflet to explain to them the opportunities available to them under the Resale Prices Bill.

Mr. Heath: No legislation is required to enable small shopkeepers to form buying associations. Information and advice of the kind referred to in the second part of the Question would naturally be provided by trade associations, but I will certainly consider the provision of such a leaflet as my hon. Friend suggests.

Sir J. Lucas: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Is he aware of the tremendous service which he would be doing to the community if he could enable small shopkeepers to compete and so help their friends in the community at large?

Mr. Heath: I wish to do everything possible to encourage the sort of arrangement mentioned by my hon. Friend. During my Second Reading speech on the Resale Prices Bill I described how this was in operation in the grocery trade covering a £500 million turnover, and so naturally I should wish to encourage such arrangements.

Mr. Wade: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will issue a leaflet indicating which of the 150 Amendments to the Bill he intends to accept?

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that not only in the grocery trade but in other trades there are a number of successful buying organisations so that there is not the slightest reason why retailers, should not get together and mitigate the effects of the Bill?

Mr. Heath: I agree with my hon. Friend. This is developing in other trades and should be encouraged

Scotland (Trade with Scandinavia)

Mr. Millan: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will make a statement

on trade between Scandinavia and Scotland; and what steps he is taking to increase it.

Mr. du Cann: I am anxious that Scottish businessmen should take full advantage of the lowering of barriers between E.F.T.A. countries to increase their trade with Scandinavia. The export services of the Board of Trade are always at their disposal.

Mr. Millan: Is the Minister aware that, geographically speaking, Scotland is in a favourable position to develop trade with Scandinavia but there is a good deal of concern about the proposal to cut back the air service between Prestwick and Scandinavia? Will he look at this from the trade point of view and raise the matter with the Ministry of Aviation? Is he aware that there is a tremendous amount of concern in Scotland about the effect that this will have on trade?

Mr. du Cann: I agree with my hon. Friend about the geographical position of Scotland with relation to Scandinavia. It is gratifying that the United Kingdom exports and re-exports to Scandinavia are rising and have risen from £378 million in 1961 to £432 million in 1963. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that as was announced by my right hon. Friend in Geneva a week or two ago, the next E.F.T.A. meeting will be held in Edinburgh and we hope that this will help to cement an already happy relationship.

Mr. Manuel: Will the Minister take into account the salient point arising from the question of business interests between Scotland and Scandinavia, and do what he can——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I should have been quicker in stopping the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) when he referred to this point, because of the next three Questions.

Prestwick (Scandinavian Air Services)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what representations he has received from industrialists in Scotland concerning the industrial effects of proposed restrictions on Scandinavian air services at Prestwick; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what is his estimate of the effects of the diversion of Scandinavian air services from Prestwick upon trade between Scotland and the Scandinavian countries.

Mr. Ross: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what representations he has received regarding the effects on Government policy for expanding industrial development in Scotland of restricting air services between Scotland and Scandinavia; and what replies he has sent.

Mr. du Cann: My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations, mainly from local authorities, which he has brought to the notice of my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Aviation, who is responsible for air services. In reaching a decision on this matter the Government will take full account of the importance of air communications to the development of Scotland's industry and trade.

Mr. Hamilton: Can the hon. Gentleman say why this was even considered in the first instance in view of the fact that the declared policy of the Government is to encourage industrial growth in Scotland instead of taking measures to hinder it, as this undoubtedly will do? Will the hon. Gentleman take note of the almost unanimous protests of industrialists of all political persuasions in Scotland that this kind of attack on or threat to the growth of the economy of Scotland must be stopped at once if the Government are sincerely interested in the future expansion of the Scottish economy?

Mr. du Cann: I note what the hon. Member has said and will bring his remarks and these Questions to the notice of the Minister of Aviation, but I am not satisfied that on the whole the development of trade with Scandinavia or Scottish industrial development is likely to be affected substantially by the decisions made.

Mr. Ross: I hope that the Minister will have another look at this and at the real problems involved. He should be aware that the Minister of State and the Scottish Council made a special visit

to Scandinavia to build up trade. One of the things brought to their notice was the establishment of a link between Scandinavia and Scotland via Prestwick. [HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it is upon this that we have some Scandinavian industries established in this part of the world? Will he look upon this as much more his concern than that of the Minister of Aviation?

Mr. du Cann: We are at the moment talking about transatlantic services. If there is an unsatisfied demand for services between Scandinavia and Scotland there is nothing on earth to stop those services being introduced. Certainly the remarks made my the hon. Member will be noted.

Mr. Manuel: Will the hon. Gentleman take note of the fact that Ayrshire Members of Parliament met the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation last week? Will the hon. Gentleman do what he can to understand the issues involved here—which, apparently from his answers, he does not—and use his influence and the influence of his Department strongly to inform the Minister of Aviation just how important it is in the sense of employment and trade?

Mr. du Cann: I have already undertaken to bring the views expressed today to the notice of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation, and I am happy to give the general assurance required by the hon. Member.

Advance Factories

Mr. Brewis: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he will advertise in the national newspapers those advance factories which are not yet tenanted.

Mr. Heath: I am prepared to consider advertising in suitable cases.

Mr. Brewis: May I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply? Does he consider that bringing these advance factories to the notice of industrialists is being pursued vigorously enough at the moment? If property companies find it advisable to advertise in the local papers, should not his Department do so?

Mr. Heath: That is why I say I am prepared to consider advertising in the newspapers where that appears to be suitable. Advance factories are advertised regularly in the Board of Trade Journal and we find that most tenancies result from approaches either to the Industrial Estates Management Corporations or to our regional offices. We wish to pursue every possible channel and I shall consider the suggestion made by my hon. Friend.

Trade and Development (Geneva Conference)

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what preparations Her Majesty's Government are making for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to be held at Geneva from 23rd March; and what proposals Her Majesty's Government will make at that Conference.

Mr. du Cann: Her Majesty's Government have taken a full part in the preparatory work, and intend to take a constructive part in the conference itself. The United Kingdom delegation will lay particular stress on the importance for the trade of the developing countries, and for world trade generally, of wider access to markets and the removal of barriers to trade.

Mr. Jay: Is the Minister aware that a large number of under-developed countries have put great faith in this conference in Geneva? Can he say what practical steps the Government are to take there to see that other industrial countries do at least as much as this country is doing to buy products, both primary and manufactured, from less-developed countries?

Mr. du Cann: I agree with what the right hon. Member said in the first part of his supplementary question. Great hopes have been expressed—I hope not too great—for the success of this Conference and we shall work for its success. Her Majesty's Government take the view that we have done a great deal to open our markets for manufactured goods not least from the Commonwealth. What is important is that other countries should follow that example. My right hon. Friend is at present engaged

in discussions with Commonwealth trade Ministers.

Sir C. Osborne: Can my hon. Friend send to the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) a copy of the resolution proposed by the British delegation at the I.P.U. Conference in Belgrade last September, which stresses the importance of raising and stabilising the prices of raw materials as the best way of helping those countries? These proposals were accepted by his Department.

Mr. du Cann: This obviously is a very important matter and one which will be very much discussed. I think many people who follow these affairs, as I know my hon. Friend does, have been gratified by the recent increase in commodity prices.

Mr. O'Malley: Will the Government in preparation for this conference consider existing restrictive agreements, particularly the agreement made in December, 1962, in Paris by the British steelmakers, which is adversely affecting British exports? Will the Government look at this and bring up the subject at the conference?

Mr. du Cann: I am not certain that I understand or necessarily agree with the point the hon. Member has made, but I shall pay attention to it while not giving the assurance which he seeks.

Resale Price Maintenance

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in view of the public interest shown in regard to his decision to abolish resale price maintenance, he will state how many representations have now been made to Her Majesty's Government supporting and opposing this decision, respectively.

Mr. Heath: About 2,000 letters have been addressed to the Board of Trade or passed on by other Departments. The great majority were from traders and trade organisations expressing opposition to the Government's decision. Those from other members of the public were mainly in favour. The Consumer Council has also expressed its support for the abolition of resale price maintenance. I cannot make any estimate of the number of letters on this subject answered


by other Departments, but I would not expect it to make any significant difference to the total I have given.

Sir T. Moore: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has not given me any real figures or total, but that the response which he has got from both trade organisations and the public differs strangely from my correspondence inasmuch as out of the scores of letters I have received on this subject not one has been in support of it?

Mr. Heath: I am afraid that my hon. Friend's experience does not meet that of us at the Board of Trade or, I think, perhaps that of other hon. Members. The consumers have not made their views felt in the same way as some organised trade associations have done, and I must confess to my hon. Friend that the groups of letters which have been received at the Board of Trade often reveal a common inspiration.

Queenslie Industrial Estate, Glasgow

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what representations he has received in respect of the proposed extension of Queenslie Industrial Estate, Glasgow; and if he will reconsider his decision to refuse acquisition.

Mr. Heath: The Lord Provost of Gasgow has asked that the Board of Trade should acquire from the Glasgow Corporation some 90 acres of land as an extension to the Board's existing estate at Queenslie. The Board of Trade already own 24 acres of underdeveloped land there and is developing an estate of over 100 acres at Bellshill only eight miles away. I should be prepared to authorise acquisition of some part of the 90 acres if a specific project requiring more land were proposed but I do not consider I would be justified in acquiring the whole of this area.

Mr. Hannan: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that in view of the abnormal figures of unemployment in this area—in addition to those which were given by the Minister of Labour on Monday—he should look at this problem yet again with a view to

acquiescing fully in the request of the Corporation?

Mr. Heath: The important thing is that we should persuade industrialists to go to this area. We already have 24 acres there of good industrial site and we have 100 acres at Bellshill which we are developing. I do not believe that we would be justified in tying up more public money in acquiring additional land now. However, I am prepared to take any part which is required for a specific project.

Mr. Ross: Will the Secretary of State remember that one of the criticisms of the Local Employment Act by the Estimates Committee was its failure to appreciate and buy in advance land that was essential? Is he aware that this, particularly in relation to Glasgow, is what he should now be doing?

Mr. Heath: I do not think that that criticism could apply in this case in view of the land which I have said we have available.

Industrial Development (Grants)

Mr. Dempsey: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what was the total number and value of grants under the Local Employment Act, 1963, applied for since its inception by firms in Scotland and Coatbridge and Airdrie, respectively; and what were the number and value approved, the number and value refused, and the number and value of those still undecided.

Mr. Heath: As the Answer contains a number of figures, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Dempsey: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a substantial number of grants under the Act were refused by the Board of Trade and that this attitude on the part of his Department seems to ignore the unemployment complement in Scotland, which is now about 100,000? Will he in future try to be more generous and help us in Scotland to employ the present unemployed?

Mr. Heath: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is justified in drawing those conclusions until he has examined the figures. Having done that, I think


he will find that what he says does not follow from the figures.

Following are the figures:


LOCAL EMPLOYMENT ACT, 1963


APPLICATIONS FOR STANDARD GRANTS


Applications
Scotland
Coatbridge and Airdrie



Number
Value
Number
Value




(£m.)

(£000)


Received
930
9
25
56


Approved
500
5·5
16
50


Rejected
90
0·3
3
2


In hand
340
3·2
6
4

West Yorkshire

Mr. Ginsburg: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will make arrangements for improved machinery for co-ordinating the work of Government Departments in the West Yorkshire industrial conurbation with regard to development of the region as a whole; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heath: I am satisfied that present arrangements provide satisfactorily for the co-ordination of Departments' work in the area.

Mr. Ginsburg: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that he and his colleagues have been consistently playing down this problem? Is it not a fact that Yorkshire has an ageing industrial structure? Is he also aware that if he came to my constituency he would discover that no effective I.D.C.s have been granted to new industrial undertakings in, for example, the heavy woollen district since the war?

Mr. Heath: I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman says but the machinery of co-ordination is working satisfactorily. The controllers meet regularly and I think that it is a question of machinery which the hon. Gentleman is raising. The rest of his points are covered by the study I have discussed.

Mr. A. Roberts: Is the Secretary of State aware that his Department is turning away growth industries from the West Riding?

Mr. Heath: We are endeavouring to persuade industry to go into the develop-

ment districts, which must have first priority. This certainly applies to those parts of the West Riding which do not have heavy unemployment like the development districts.

Coatbridge

Mr. Dempsey: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he is aware that during the last 10 years the town of Coatbridge has lost 1,000 jobs; and what action he is taking to reverse this trend.

Mr. Heath: Coatbridge, as part of the North Lanark growth area, will continue to receive the benefits of the programme of growth outlined in the White Paper on Central Scotland. Excluding the areas of Blantyre and Hamilton, the estimated number of insured employees in employment in the Growth Area has increased by over 5,000 between 1951 and 1962.

Mr. Dempsey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are 3,000 unemployed in this area now and that 11,450 others must travel elsewhere, out of the district, to work? Does he agree that he cannot challenge these figures, which have been announced today? Is it not about time that we got cracking with the building of some advance factories in the Coatbridge and Airdrie areas to prevent the unemployment position from becoming even worse?

Mr. Heath: The important figures I have given show a growth in the numbers employed of about 5,000 between 1951 and 1962.

Mr. T. Fraser: Will the Secretary of State explain his exclusion of the exchange areas of Hamilton and Blantyre, which are in my constituency and which are in the centre of this growth area, and his inclusion of the figures for East Kilbride, which provides employment not for people from Lanarkshire but mainly for people from Glasgow?

Mr. Heath: I was answering a Question about Coatbridge and was giving the figures for which the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) had asked.

Factory, South Yorkshire (Closure)

Mr. Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he is aware that the factory known as Bakers and Bessemers Ltd., Kilnhurst, will become vacant during the early part of next month; and if he will schedule South Yorkshire as a development district, in order to take action to encourage some other firm to take the place of the outgoing company.

Mr. Heath: I am aware of the forthcoming closure of this factory and I shall do all I can to find a new occupier for the premises. The level of unemployment in South Yorkshire is not such that I should feel justified in making it or any part of it a development district.

Mr. Wainwright: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the consortium that bought the plant did so deliberately to close it down? Is he aware that this so-called outdated plant is being transferred to other companies attached to the consortium throughout Yorkshire and the rest of the country? Is he aware that part of the machinery is the most up-to-date in the country, and that the two major members of the consortium—United Steel and English Steel—are falling out about it? Will he do something to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen in the future, and may I press him to bring some other industry into this part of Yorkshire when this factory has closed down?

Mr. Heath: The factory is to close down on 28th March. About 900 out of 1,100 workers have already been discharged, and some 800 of them have already found other employment. The economy is expanding there. The steel industry is doing well, and over most of Yorkshire the unemployment rate is below 2 per cent. Several firms are already interested in the factory, and some of them have inspected it with a view to possible purchase.

Mr. Wainwright: The right hon. Gentleman says nothing about the welfare of the men who have lost their jobs. About 300 more men are to be put out of work on 28th of this month. The right hon. Gentleman has said nothing about the intentions of the consortium, or the fact that the two main members

of the consortium—United Steel and English Steel—deliberately purchased the plant to close it down. This sort of thing should not be allowed to happen in the future.

Mr. Heath: I say that it is encouraging that 800 men out of 900 should already have found alternative employment; that the rate of unemployment in the area is below 2 per cent.; that other opportunities are coming along, and that other firms are inspecting the factory for their own use. All this is extremely encouraging, and certainly does not allow me to accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion of making this area a development district.

Mr. Wainwright: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the subject on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — CABINET MINISTERS (REMUNERATION)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Prime Minister if he will take steps to ensure that the minimum rate of remuneration for Cabinet Ministers shall be £5,000 per annum.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir, not in advance of the recommendations of the Committee now considering the remuneration of Ministers and Members of Parliment.

Mr. Lipton: While one is undoubtedly pleased to see the Leader of the House deputising for the Prime Minister, may I ask if he is aware that the Minister of State for Education is one of the few members of the Government who is respected on both sides of the House? In those circumstances, is it not all the more deplorable, and indeed disgusting, that as a result of a squalid backstairs deal between the Prime Minister and the new Minister of Education a good man should be compelled to work in the Cabinet at cut-price rates?

Mr. Lloyd: I am sure my right hon. Friend, who wholeheartedly supported this reorganisation, will be gratified to


know that the hon. Member thinks that the value of his services exceeds his financial remuneration.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the standard salary for a Cabinet Minister —£5,000 per annum—has been in operation for almost a century? Does he not think it time to prevent these black-legging tactics on the part of members of the Government?

Mr. Lloyd: I think it much better to do what I suggested, and await the report of the Committee which is now considering these matters.

Mr. Thorpe: Could the Leader of the House consider the possibility of increasing the salary of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Is he aware that the Chancellor at Exeter suggested that all dissatisfied voters should vote Labour? Would it not be possible for his salary to be met by the Conservative and Labour Parties in view of the valuable work he is doing for both organisations?

Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. Member has a serious suggestion to make on this matter, I can communicate with the Committee which is now sitting.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORLD HEALTH RESEARCH CENTRE

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Prime Minister what consultations he had with the Prime Ministers of other Commonwealth countries before Her Majesty's Government instructed their delegate in the World Health Organisation to vote against the establishment of an International Institute of Medical Research, which would have been of benefit to the peoples of these countries.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have been asked to reply.
The right hon. Member is under some misapprehension. No instructions have been given to vote against the proposed establishment of a World Health Research Centre. On the contrary, we voted for the Resolution adopted in the World Health Assembly on 17th March requesting the Director-General to continue studies of the subject and report

to the Executive Board and the World Health Assembly.

Mr. Noel-Baker: May I thank the Leader of the House for his Answer, congratulate him on its contents, and rejoice that the Press reports were untrue? Will he press on the Prime Minister and his colleagues that an earlier international research institute, C.E.R.N.—concerned with nuclear research—has done immense service in stimulating national research, and that this medical institute will do the same?

Mr. Lloyd: As the right hon. Gentleman is, I am sure, aware, a proposal for a World Health Research Centre has fallen into three main parts—first epidemiological studies, that means the incidence of disease; secondly, a centre for assembling and processing information and, thirdly, by means of establishing a large international laboratory for biological research. On the first two, there is little difference of opinion. On the third, the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy has advised strongly against, but the matter is being considered. The Director-General is making a further study of the matter which will be decided in the light of that study by the countries concerned.

Mr. Noel-Baker: On the question of the biological research institute, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the nuclear research experiment, C.E.R.N., is of great relevance and points strongly in favour of establishing the Research Centre?

Mr. Lloyd: We will certainly take that precedent into account, but we must also have regard to the views of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy.

Mr. K. Robinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up some of the confusion surrounding this matter? Does he not agree that last week the British delegate at the World Health Assembly, who is the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, poured cold water on the whole of this idea? If the Government are now in favour of the idea and if further negotiations are proceeding at Geneva, will he frankly admit that there has been a change of policy?

Mr. Lloyd: No, because the hon. Gentleman has got the matter quite


wrong. We are in favour of the idea of a World Health Centre. The point at which some doubt has arisen concerns the advice we have received from the Advisory Council, which is a very powerful body under the chairmanship of Lord Todd. That advice has been flat against the suggestion, and our representative, when he made his speech, indicated our doubts on that third point, but not on the project as a whole.

Sir B. Stross: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman in mind the location of this centre? Has he noted the fact that a number of hon. Members have tabled a Motion suggesting that it should be located in the United Kingdom, and will he give favourable consideration to that suggestion?

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly, and I understand that certain other countries are already suggesting that it should go to them. I see no reason why, if it is created, it should not come to us.

Mr. Jay: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that his answers are at any rate more informative than those of the Prime Minister?

EDUCATION (INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET)

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Dr. KING: To ask the Minister of Education(1) if he will make a statement on the value of the Initial Teaching Alphabet in the more successful teaching of reading during the earliest stages of learning;
(2) if he will take steps, through Her Majesty's inspectors of education and otherwise, to bring to the attention of local education authorities and teachers the advantages of an early adoption of the Initial Teaching Alphabet, so that its benefits may be enjoyed as soon as possible by as many children as possible when they first begin to be taught to read.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): With permission, I will now answer Questions Nos. 53 and 54 together.
I have watched the progress of this experiment with great interest and I

can inform the House that the Initial Teaching Alphabet has been used with remarkable success in a number of schools during the earliest stages of learning.
Accordingly, I have decided to assist the further continuation of the experiment with a grant to the London University Institute of Education of about £4,000 in the current financial year and a further £5,000 next year from my Department's research fund.
A final evaluation of the experiment will not be possible until some while after the children concerned have transferred to traditional orthography. But if the promise of the results obtained so far is fulfilled, I have no doubt that the use of this Alphabet will spread further, and that its significance will become more widely understood.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) for their work in keeping its possibilities before the public eye.

Dr. King: I thank the Minister most warmly for his statement. Is he aware that education is deeply indebted to his hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) who devised the Initial Teaching Alphabet? Here we seem to have a break-through in the teaching of reading by a new instrument which not only enables bright and average children to learn the more quickly and release their energies for other valuable work, but may succeed in preventing some children from failing to get over the hurdle and open the door for them to the inestimable gift of reading. Indeed, that experiment itself may be a lead to the whole English-speaking world.

Sir E. Boyle: I am sure that all hon. Members on this side of the House will be grateful to the hon. Member for his tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath. We are to debate the subject on Thursday next, and in view of the business before the House this afternoon I will only say that I have taken this opportunity of answering these Questions separately in order to emphasise the importance of the topic.

Sir J. Pitman: I should like to thank my right hon. Friend the Minister and


the House very much indeed for what has been said. Will my right hon. Friend join with me—and, I am sure, the House—in thanking the officials of his Department, the local education authorities, the head teachers and the class teachers who had the courage and the vision—with a lot of hard work—to make this exciting break-through in the teaching of reading?
Will he also join in highly commending the London University Institute of Education and the National Foundation for Educational Research for conducting a most fruitful piece of research which, incidentally, has maintained for this country its traditional leadership in our great heritage—the English language?

Sir E. Boyle: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am aware that everyone concerned has contributed a very great deal to this important and exciting development. It is because of the known tendency for experimental methods to achieve success because of the stimulus of being under observation that I was just a shade cautious in my words this afternoon, but I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has just said, and I particularly note his tributes to my own Department and to London University.

Mrs. White: As the attendance at the debate next week may be a little thin, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that there are some of us on this side of the House—and, I am sure, on his own—who are extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman), although some of us started out in this matter with a certain amount of scepticism?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. G. Brown: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 23RD, TUESDAY, 24TH, and WEDNESDAY, 25TH, MARCH—Committee stage of the Resale Prices Bill.
THURSDAY, 26TH MARCH—It is proposed that the House should meet at
Eleven a.m., that Questions be taken until Twelve noon, and that the House adjourn at Five o'clock, until Tuesday, 7th April.

Mr. G. Brown: There is not a lot of variety in next week's business—[Hon. Members: "Wait and see."] When the Leader of the House refers to the Committee stage of the Resale Prices Bill, may the House take it that he means that we shall make such progress as may be with the Committee stage? Further, so that his hon. Friends are not put under too much stress, is it his intention that we should not sit too late on any of the three days?

Mr. Lloyd: It will depend on the progress we make. I hope very much that it will not be necessary to ask the House to sit at a late hour, but it does depend on how we get on.

Sir G. Nicholson: I know that my right hon. and learned Friend has seen the Motion on Statutory Instruments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) and other hon. Members. Is he aware that, although the Statutory Instrument in question may not be of great significance, a question of principle is involved, in that the House appointed a Select Committee to report on certain subjects, and that the Select Committee reported that two Ministers had made unexpected use of their powers.
It is not right and proper that the House should have an early opportunity to debate a Report of that nature? In spite of the difficulties, will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for such a debate very soon?

[That this House approves the resolution of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments regarding the Weights and Measures (Equivalents for dealings with drugs) Regulations 1964, contained in their Second Report, regrets that the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland have together made unexpected use of the powers conferred on them by statute, and calls on them to withdraw the present Regulations and to substitute others.]

Mr. Lloyd: As I told my hon. Friend last week, I have sympathy with his point of view. It is very important that proper


regard should be paid to the work of this Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. In this particular instance, as he knows, there was an unfortunate circumstance in that the time ran out without the matter having been mentioned to me. I certainly promise to do my very best to see that it does not happen again; and that there will be an opportunity to debate a matter of this sort.
Meanwhile, I will think over the possibility of discussing the Motion. Obviously, we cannot undertake to do so this next week.

Mr. Jay: In view of the sharp disagreement on the Resale Prices Bill between the President of the Board of Trade and the Leader of the House, might it not be conducive to greater harmony within the Government if the Committee stage were postponed until after Easter?

Mr. Lloyd: I always admire the right hon. Gentleman's fertile imagination; in this case, he is drawing on it to the full.

Mr. Shinwell: When does the Leader of the House propose to introduce the Motion for the Easter Adjournment—or is he proposing to take that this afternoon after the present business has been disposed of? Whether he does so today or next week, is he aware that I propose to move an Amendment in order to facilitate Government business?

Mr. Lloyd: The Motion is on the Order Paper today.

Mr. J. Harvey: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power, on Second Reading of the Continental Shelf Bill, described the provisions of the Bill as highly desirable and urgent? In view of the fact that the Committee stage of the Bill has been completed for some little time, may I ask when we can expect the Third Reading?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot tell my hon. Friend that this afternoon, but I will have regard to what he has said, with which I agree.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Leader of the House aware that we have now reached the Scottish section of the Hire-Purchase Bill, but that, unfortunately, the Solicitor-General for Scotland is no longer avail-

able to give us guidance? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman therefore try to persuade the Prime Minister to attend the Committee on the Bill to demonstrate that his legal knowledge is more profound than his economic?

Dr. King: As the Report on the South-East, published today, raises certain issues of such profound importance not only for the South-East but for the whole of the country, will the Leader of the House give us an undertaking that early after Easter the House will have an opportunity of having a debate on it?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot give any definite promise, because of certain other business soon after Easter which takes a good deal of the time of the House, but I will certainly take what the hon. Member has said into account.

Sir C. Osborne: On future business, will my right hon. and learned Friend see whether he can find time to consider the increase in crimes of violence? In view of yesterday's incident, in which a Midland Bank manager was shot when he was doing his ordinary duties, and of the almost daily occurrences in which men are beaten up when they are carrying money in the course of doing their normal job, does not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that something should be done to protect people in these circumstances? Will he promise that we shall be able to have time to debate this subject at an early date?

Mr. Lloyd: I was certainly aware of the Motion which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne).

[That this House is of opinion that flogging should be reintroduced as a punishment for crimes of violence against the person, the number of cases of which in England and Wales known to the police and cleared up has increased from 2,721 in 1938, to 4,062 in 1946, to 7,884 in 1955, and to 17,948 in 1962, and that it should be continued for a period of five years to determine whether the fear of this punishment would act as a deterrent and give greater protection especially to bank officials, Post Office workers, wages clerks, and other persons lawfully in charge of money as well as defenceless women, children and old people.]

I think that the Government's views on this matter have been made plain but, nevertheless, I will consider what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Harold Davies: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he was in the House yesterday when some of us endeavoured to get a statement from his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and, under the rules of the House, Mr. Speaker informed us—and most of us already knew—that there was no cue within the rules of order which would enable that to happen?
The reference was to a question by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. My right hon. Friend asked whether the Leader of the House would make an announcement about the "leak" of the terms of the Annual Agricultural Review. The Minister of Agriculture replied:
… I assure the House that I shall take all steps necessary to ensure that nothing comes out from within my own Department."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1964; Vol. 691, c 1932.]
The point is that it came out.
Would the Leader of the House, therefore, ask his right hon. Friend whether, out of courtesy to the House, he will make an investigation before the Recess into this massive "leak" and explain it to the House?

Mr. Lloyd: That is not a matter for me on the question of business for next week, but my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture said that by the very nature of these negotiations many people have to know about them who are not in his own Ministry and that he was satisfied, as far as his own Ministry was concerned, that the "leak," or the information, or whatever it was, had not come from that source.

Mr. Harold Davies: May I press this point—

Mr. Speaker: Not on business.

Mr. C. Johnson: Is the Leader of the House aware that six months ago a promise was made on behalf of the Government to introduce a scheme in the present Parliament for the compensation of victims of crimes of violence? Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain the reason for the delay in

the publication of the oft-promised White Paper by the Home Secretary, and will he now repeat this promise and the undertaking to introduce such a scheme before the General Election?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall have to look into the question of promised legislation. I hope that the White Paper will be produced very soon.

Mr. Oram: In view of the great number and complexity of the Amendments to the Resale Prices Bill next week, will the Leader of the House have in mind the arrangement which we have in connection with the Finance Bill whereby there is posted in the "No" Lobby a list showing the selection and grouping of Amendments? Will such a facility be possible in connection with this Bill?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a matter for the Chairman of Ways and Means. I am pretty sure that it will happen, but I will bear in mind what the hon. Member has said.

Mr. P. Browne: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that for many years some of us have been pressing for a debate in Government time on rural transport? Is he aware that last week the Minister of Transport announced an interim decision on what he would do, in answer to a Written Question, which is, in any case, a practice that one deprecates? However, in view of the fact that the Minister of Transport has done this, will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a debate on the subject?

Mr. Lloyd: All I can say is, "No, not next week".

Mr. Boyden: Is the Leader of the House aware that another new set of buildings at Aldershot seem in danger of collapsing? Would it not be more constructive if on Monday he postpones the business on the Resale Prices Bill in order to discuss the industrialised building methods of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, which do not seem to be going as smoothly as the Minister seems to be suggesting?

Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir.

Mr. Manuel: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is on the Order Paper a Motion on Prestwick Airport


and its future and on the Scandinavian air routes through Prestwick? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look at this and promise the House that if there is to be an agreement on the reduction of S.A.S. flights through Prestwick the House will have an opportunity to debate it before it becomes a fact accepted by the Government?

[That this House, realising the importance of Prestwick Airport and the part it could play in the development of the Scottish economy and the tourist industry, urges the Minister of Aviation to reconsider his decision to reduce the number of flights of Scandinavian Air Services to Prestwick and to consider plans which will safeguard the interests of Prestwick as an international airport.]

Mr. Lloyd: I heard the Questions put earlier to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade and the Answers given and I will look into the point.

Mr. Pavitt: It is unlikely that we shall find time in the short week ahead of us to discuss the Motion on the Order Paper on shorter speeches.

[That this House, in order to improve the quality of debate, would welcome the convention whereby all back benchers, including Privy Councillors, should limit their speeches to 15 minutes.]

May I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will pay attention to an Amendment to that Motion, standing in my name, which proposes a simple device which is inexpensive and which will enable loquacious Members to be brief and taciturn Members to have more elbow room?

[Line 3, at end add "and, in order that hon. Members may check easily the duration of their own speeches, urges that a stop-clock should be placed on the gallery level above the gangways to be re-set at the commencement of each speech".]

Mr. Lloyd: There is a Motion on the Order Paper in my name suggesting that this matter should be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure and no doubt the hon. Member's suggestion will be considered by that Committee.

[That the matters of the form of the Defence Estimates; of the disclosure of matters contained in the Reports of Select Committees; of the allocation of time to proceedings on public bills; of opportunities for brief speeches; and of the method of signifying objection during the time for unopposed business, being matters relating to the procedure in the public business of the House, be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure.]

Mr. Lipton: In view of the right hon. and learned Gentlemen's statement that the Committee stage of the Resale Prices Bill will be concluded on Wednesday night, may I ask what sort of date he has in mind for the completion of the Report stage?

Mr. Lloyd: Not yet, Sir.

Mr. Ross: That is a long way off.

TRADE UNIONS AND THE LAW

The Minister of Labour (Mr. J. B. Godber): With permission, I wish to make a statement.
Recent decisions in the courts have focused attention on the present state of the law affecting trade unions and employers' associations, which was last reviewed nearly 60 years ago. The Government are of the opinion that the law should again be reviewed. Such a review will be most effective if undertaken with the willing co-operation of both employers' associations and trade unions and ree from the atmosphere of political controversy.
I understand that the Trades Union Congress is itself giving consideration to the effect of the recent judgments and that it will be letting me have its views.
The Government think that an inquiry such as they envisage should be undertaken early in the life of the next Parliament. They will seek the co-operation of the Trades Union Congress and the British Employers' Confederation and will at the appropriate time discuss with them the form and scope of the inquiry.

Mr. Gunter: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that in the absence of any knowledge of the terms of reference and of the form of the inquiry it is difficult to formulate


opinions and to reflect upon the wisdom of his statement at this moment, but there are two points which I should like to raise to make for greater clarification.
Would the right hon. Gentleman make quite clear that neither the British Employers' Federation nor the Trades Union Congress have at this time given their considered views on the Minister's conclusions? There is no reason why they should, but as the right hon. Gentleman went on to speak of the necessity for the co-operation of these bodies at a later stage we ought to have it clear that nobody in industry at this moment is committed to any future course of action.
The second point is that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the inquiry in the life of the next Parliament. I am sure that we all appreciate his academic interest in that period of time, but are we to understand that discussions about the form and the scope of the inquiry will also not take place until after the General Election?

Mr. Godber: Yes, Sir; I quite understand that the hon. Gentleman woulii not wish to comment in detail on an important statement of this kind at this stage.
It is true that the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress are not committed by the statement which I have made, but I thought it right to state the Government's position.
The consultations will, of course, take place after the General Election. The hon. Gentleman will then have the pleasure of seeing us back in our place here.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will give immense satisfaction to all those who believe in the necessity for a sensible, vigorous and free trade union movement in a democratic society? Will he tell the House a little more about the form he thinks that the inquiry will take? Is it likely to be a Royal Commission? Can he also assure us that, whatever form it takes, the report will be published so that the entire public can read it?

Mr. Godber: As I have said, we propose to discuss the form as well as the scope of the inquiry with both sides of industry. Until we get their views it would be premature to decide whether it should be a Royal Commission or some other body. Whatever body is appointed, however, it must, clearly, be authoritative and command general respect. The question of publication is subject to consultation, but I would be very surprised if publication were not agreed upon.

Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his announcement seems to be slightly academic? However, assuming that some inquiry takes place, is he aware that, while the willing co-operation of both employers' associations and trade unions is no doubt essential, there is also very important general public interest in the matter? Will he assure us that when he talks of keeping this out of political controversy he has no intention of avoiding discussion of the matter from the point of view of the public or the consumers, and that their point of view will be represented in whatever inquiry takes place, if it takes place?

Mr. Godber: The matter may be academic to the right hon. Gentleman, but it is not to the Government. The point of view of the consumers will, as I have said, be subject to discussion between the two bodies which are mainly concerned. Of course, others will be able to give their views before whatever body is appointed.

Mr. Renton: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, although it is necessary to have discussion and to get the views of all concerned, the present state of the law is so chaotic that he should try to reach a solution as soon as possible? Will he, therefore, choose a form of inquiry which, without abandoning any necessary discussion, enables an early solution to be reached?

Mr. Godber: Yes, Sir. I think that it is very important that such an inquiry should be held in conditions in which there will be no question of political controversy. That is why I have said that I believe it should be at the start of a new Parliament. Certainly, as soon as we are returned we shall see to it at once.

Mrs. Hart: Is not this setting a new precedent? Have there been any other occasions that the right hon. Gentleman can quote when he has proposed to set up an inquiry without previously having the agreement to participate of the major bodies involved on a subject the scope and nature of which he is not prepared to identify beyond the most general terms? Is not this clearly designed to influence opinion before the General Election without attempting to make clear what the Government's objective really is?

Mr. Godber: Certainly not. That is not the intention in any shape or form. This is a matter in which the Government believe that those concerned should be aware of the way in which the present Government are thinking. We have no desire to impose anything; in fact, we want the fullest consultation. We thought it right, however, to inform both bodies and the country first.

Mr. K. Lewis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, whatever view may be taken by the leaders on the trade union or the employers' sides, many of us feel that this will be accepted as the right step by many trade unionists and many employers? Will he assure the House that if there is any question of the leaders of either side dragging their feet in the matter, and not co-operating, although we want their co-operation, the Government will, nevertheless, after the General Election, proceed with the inquiry?

Mr. Godber: I have every hope—indeed, confidence—that the leaders of both sides will accept this and will work with us in seeking to elucidate and straighten out the problems which have arisen in regard to the law.

Mr. G. Brown: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the subject of the last question is exactly the sort of thing which may spoil the atmosphere for something which ought to happen? Am I right in deducing from the second paragraph of his statement that no steps are to be taken by the Government of the day to discuss the form of the inquiry

or the terms of reference until after the General Erection?

Mr. Godber: That is the Government's intention. Of course, if either side wishes to do so, I shall be very happy to talk with those concerned, but there will be no intention to come to any decision.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: We must get on with business.

Mr. C. Pannell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The trade union group in this House, which is the largest and oldest of my party, has not been heard on this matter. I happen to be the secretary of the group, and I should have thought that I had a right to be heard.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry about that. I had hoped that I had covered enough ground by calling the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition. But I am a little hampered by the necessity, in the service of the House, to induce it to get on with its business.

BILLS PRESENTED

ROAD TRAFFIC

Bill to amend the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1962 relating to temporary or experimental limits, presented by Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison; supported by Mr. David Webster, Mr. R. Gresham Cooke, Mr. James Allason, Mr. Peter Walker, and Mr. Leonard Cleaver; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 10th April, and to be printed.[Bi11 114.]

FOOTWEAR MATERIALS MARKING

Bill to make provision with respect to the marking of materials used in the manufacture of footwear, presented by Mr. Paget; supported by Captain L. P. S. Orr, Miss Alice Bacon, Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Sir Godfrey Nicholson, Sir Arthur Vere Harvey, Mr. Dingle Foot, and Mr. Frank Bowles; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 10th April, and to be printed. [Bill 115.]

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House do meet on Thursday next at Eleven o'clock, that no Questions be taken after Twelve o'clock, and that at Five o'clock Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without putting any Question.—[Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.]

Mr. George Wigg: I should like to make one or two observations before the Motion is passed. We have just heard from the Minister of Labour one of the most extraordinary statements that I have ever heard in this assembly. Leaving aside the question whether the matter with which he was dealing was academic or not, he seemed to think that controversy was a vice to be avoided, whereas I hold the view that in a democracy it is a virtue to be practised. That is what we are here for. I propose to detain the House for a few moments practising that virtue.
We are asked, in the usual form, to go off for the Easter holidays, leaving——

Mr. Speaker: I hope that I am not doing the hon. Gentleman an injustice. We have not yet got to the Motion for the Easter Adjournment. I think that he may have that in mind, but it did not sound as though he had.

Mr. Wigg: I did not hear you read the words, Mr. Speaker. If I may say so, they were not read with your usual clarity and were read speedily. I was very anxious not to lose an opportunity. I am quite willing to wait until the appropriate Motion comes before us.

Mr. Speaker: I accept the blame. I expect that the place where the hon. Gentleman sits makes it particularly difficult to hear the Chair if there is a vice versa about these things.

Question put and agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT (EASTER)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House, at its rising on Thursday next, do adjourn till Tuesday 7th April.—[Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.]

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Gordon Walker.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Mr. Gordon Walker (Smethwick) rose——

Mr. Sydney Silverman: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker. The Motion appears on the Order Paper for the first time today, and we have had no opportunity of considering it previously. It may be that many hon. Members are not content with the Motion in its present form, but might be in favour of it in some other form. Would it be in order to submit manuscript Amendments?

Mr. Speaker: Yes. I would consider a manuscript Amendment if it is submitted.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the House will say a word or two more about this important Motion. I am certainly among those who do not like it in its present form, not on the grounds which are usually given on these occasions—either that we should not go away so soon, or that we should come back earlier—but because I think that this Parliament should not come back at all. There should be a dissolution of the House and a General Election.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but, if that is the proposition, perhaps we might try a manuscript Amendment first.

Mr. S. Silverman: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the Amendment which I intended to ask your leave to move, but, if my right hon. Friend prefers to do it, I will defer to him.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Has my hon. Friend got one ready?

Mr. Silverman: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) would bring it up to the Chair.

Sir Peter Agnew: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: I have now been handed other matter for my consideration. I would be much obliged if the hon. Gentleman and the House would allow me the indulgence to look at manuscript Amendments which are not quite in common form and which I have not seen before. I must look at them.

Sir P. Agnew: On a point of order. Is it not showing less than respect for the House that hon. Members should seek to take up your time, Mr. Speaker, by a private consideration of manuscript Amendments during which nothing whatsoever is being discussed in the House?

Mr. George Wigg: Further to that point of order——

Mr. Speaker: No. I would rather answer the point of order. The House would not be detained if I were not so slow at looking at them. I am doing my best in the service of the House and I will not detain the House very long.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you know that the manuscript Amendment which I asked leave to move was to leave out the last four words of the Motion so that it would read simply—
That this House, at its rising on Thursday next, do adjourn.
I understand that it is suggested that that may be out of order as being inconsistent with the previous Motion on the Order Paper, which the House has accepted.
I want to submit to you, with respect, that it is not inconsistent at all. The Motion which we have accepted is
That this House do meet on Thursday next at Eleven o'clock, that no Questions be taken after Twelve o'clock, and that at Five o'clock Mr Speaker do adjourn the House without putting any Question.
What I would like to move, if my Amendment to the Government's Motion were accepted, is
That this House, at its rising on Thursday next, do adjourn.
I cannot see that there is any inconsistency between those two Motions. Each says that the House should adjourn, whereas the Government's second Motion says that it should adjourn until a specified date. To move that it adjourn

without specifying a date to come back can be no more inconsistent with the previous Motion than to move that we adjourn with a date to come back. Either both are inconsistent, or neither is inconsistent.
I submit that the better view, otherwise the House would stultify itself, is that neither is inconsistent and that it is perfectly competent, in spite of the Motion that we have just passed, or perhaps because of it, for the Government to move the Motion which they put on the Order Paper and for an Amendment to be moved to that Motion so as to delete the reference to the date of return.

Mr. Speaker: I regret that I was a little embarrassed by the riches around me, but I hope that we can now make progress. In answer to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I do not propose in my discretion to accept his manuscript Amendment, for this reason. If he will look at the previous Question that we have just resolved, he will notice that it was resolved that, in effect, on Thursday I do adjourn the House without Question put. The hon. Gentleman's proposition would be merely repeating that which the House has already resolved should be done.
On the other hand, I have had submitted to me, I think by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), an alternative Amendment, to leave out "7th April" and to insert "31st March". That I am prepared to accept, if it be moved.

Mr. Gordon Walker: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, would I not be in order if I simply spoke against the Motion on the Order Paper and argued that the Government should withdraw it and introduce a different one? Would not that be in order? Do I need an Amendment to argue that? That was what I was setting out to argue when you, Mr. Speaker, interrupted me. I merely want to argue against the Motion in this form and ask the Government to bring in a different one.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point of order. Before you rule upon it, Mr. Speaker, may I point out that the Amendment which you propose to


accept is not a satisfactory alternative to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) and I wish to do, because the Amendment which you propose to accept is designed to secure that the House does not adjourn at all. It would adjourn on one day and meet on the next and, presumably, continue its session. That is the exact opposite of what I want to do.
I want to adjourn on Thursday and not come back at all. It is difficult, therefore, to see why an Amendment to secure that the House should come back immediately can be a satisfactory alternative to an Amendment designed to secure that the House should not come back at all. There must be some inconsistency. If the one is in order, it is difficult to see why the other is not.

Mr. Speaker: I am indebted to the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). I think that I may have imposed my threats upon him too soon. Both he and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) can, with their usual eloquence and ingenuity, oppose the Government's Motion on the ground that, if it were adopted, it would result in us coming back.

Mr. E. Shinwell: On a point of order. What becomes of the Amendment which I propose, which you regard as quite legitimate, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: It has not been moved yet. If and when it is, I will accept it and our arguments will be confined to the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: Mr. Speaker, in view of the difficulties in which the House finds itself today, would you be good enough to consider the situation which has arisen and perhaps make a statement to the House next week, taking into account that all this would have been avoided if the Government had not tried, by a slick trick, to put this on the Order Paper one day and have it moved the next day so as to avoid just this kind of debate? They have failed to do it, but, again, it is the House as a whole that suffers. Would you be good enough to give your consideration to the matter?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that that raises any point for me. I venture to suggest to the House that we have now got enough ammunition to smite the Motion or support it. Perhaps we had better proceed.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Further to that point of order. Mr. Speaker, would you give your guidance on one point? I apprehend that Amendments have been submitted but that as yet no Amendment has been formally moved. To that extent there is, therefore, no Amendment before the House. Is it in order, at this stage, for other Amendments also to be considered?

Mr. Speaker: No Amendment is before the House. If it is desired to submit another alternative Amendment in manuscript, I shall have to look at it and see how they relate one to the other.

Mr. Thorpe: May I formally submit a manuscript Amendment to you, Sir?

[Manuscript Amendment handed in.]

Mr. Speaker: I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's Amendment and if, or when, he wishes to move it, rule upon it. Meanwhile, let us proceed.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As there are now so many manuscript Amendments which you have received, would it be possible for you to tell us what those Amendments are so that we may make up our minds about them?

Mr. Speaker: They will be announced when they are moved. Hon. Members moving them, if they have the opportunity of so doing, will read them out and, subject to acoustic difficulties, the hon. hon. Gentleman will hear their terms then.

4.11 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Walker: We dislike the Amendment—this Motion. [Laughter.] It is very easy, by a slip of the tongue, to make hon. Members opposite laugh on these occasions. We dislike the Motion on the Order Paper because we do not like the date when we should come back. For about three years now, we have had a Government without authority. This has had nothing


to do with the Profumo affair. For three years now, all the indices, the Gallup polls and by-elections have shown that we have a Government without majority support in the country and without any prospect of majority support.
This is very bad indeed for the country. It does the country harm in many ways. It is bad for public life now that we should, in the Prime Minister's words, do nothing but electioneering and electioneering. It means that decisions are put off. In fact, no decisions are made at all. Ministers have to decide—we had an example this afternoon—what words to use to try to manœuvre into a position of electoral advantage.
The way the Prime Minister now feverishly awaits the monthly figures of the balance of trade and, presumably, the quarterly figures of the balance of payments, does no good at all to the country's economy. We are, possibly in a not very strong position, and to have superimposed upon this prolonged doubt about when the Government are going and when they are to be replaced must have a bad effect upon the economic health of the nation.
It is not we who are talking the country into crisis, or whatever the Prime Minister says; it is the Government who are doing it, by prolonging uncertainty. Business does not like uncertainty. Bankers, international bankers, do not like uncertainty. It is the uncertainty imposed by the Government on the country, superimposed upon a somewhat difficult economic position, which is really doing the damage.
In this situation, the Chancellor cannot even make a proper Budget, at a time when it is extremely important that the economic policy of the country should be firmly laid down. He must be making two parallel Budgets, one on the assumption that the election is coming in a few weeks and the other on the assumption that it is coming in a few months. He cannot, therefore, make a Budget which is not affected by electoral calculations. He cannot make a Budget which looks at all far into the future.
Important appointments may be made, or not made, for the wrong reasons. There is a danger of the Government suddenly rushing appointments of im-

portance because they want to get them in before an election in which they will lose office and they hope in that way to prolong their influence for some period into the future. It is a well-known habit of Conservatives to think that they have a divine right to rule and if, by some misfortune, they get defeated at the polls they try to provide other ways by which they can protect their policies while out of office.
We have had a recent example or, at least, many rumours about it, in the director-generalship of the B.B.C. There may be the opposite process, with appointments not made which ought to be made because there is a General Election coming fairly soon—no one knows when—and because it is felt that they are appointments which should be made by a Government having a hope of future power before them.

Mr. Charles Pannell: My right hon. Friend need not strain after further examples. We have had the announcement that the right hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Vosper) would be the new Chairman of the National Assistance Board, taking office at a date which might be after a General Election, and this in spite of the fact that the party on this side of the House has said that it would have to do something about the structure of the Board. This is another of the "jobs for the boys".

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is another very good example of what I have in mind.
If appointments are made for party and political reasons before the election, the Labour Party cannot be held to be committed to such appointments if it becomes the governing party. I wish to make this perfectly clear. At this time, if there is an election round the corner which is postponed by the Government for party reasons, there should be consultation between the parties if sensitive and difficult appointments have to be made. If this is not done, we cannot hold ourselves to be committed necessarily to appointments made in that way.
There are other temptations on the Government to dress up important policies in a deceptive way. We have just had an example of this over the so-called independent nuclear deterrent.


We have been told by someone no less than the First Lord of the Admiralty that the Government intended all the time to give it up. All we know is that the date will be on the other side of the General Election. The only issue now—hitherto, the Prime Minister has attempted to make it into an enormous issue of policy—is not whether it should be done, but when. It is not right to have great decisions and great issues of policy dressed up in that way for electoral purposes.
In some ways, it is worse that we have a Government without authority in world affairs. Some tremendously important matters, like the Kennedy Round, will have to be tackled by this country, and a Government whom no one abroad, at least, expects to last very long cannot speak for and represent this country or act with vigour and certainty. There is a mass of issues—anyone who goes abroad discovers this—which are being put off by other countries pending the election here, the attitude towards the multilateral force, the question of Britain's relations with the European Economic Community, the question of international liquidity, and so on. All these things, which should not be put off, are being put off. It is in the interests of both the world and this country that they should be quickly decided.
The Government's cowardice is damaging the country. I shall sum the matter up in these words:
We have all been kept on tenterhooks about whether there would be a general election … and about when we should be about whether there would be a General Election … and about when we should be graciously told. … At the very moment when we should all be driving full steam ahead, we all had to wait until the Cabinet could agree among themselves what would pay their party best. … Whenever it comes, we are ready for the election. On party grounds alone we can certainly afford to wait. But on national grounds, a very grave practical question arises. Can Britain, in the pass to which she has been led, or has been brought, afford to spend three, four or five months manœuvring about party tactics and electioneering, with a Parliament which is not only dead but decomposing …?
It would be in the public interest that Ministers should make up their minds and announce to the public at least the month in which they intend to appeal to the country; that would be in the public interest, but I have just put in a plea for that. If they do not do so, it is inevitable that all our affairs,

especially our trade, will be hampered every week and every day by the unrest of an impending election, at which so much is at stake, and which may pounce out upon us at some moment tactically selected by them.
That was said by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) in October, 1949. It exactly sums up the truth, our position and the patriotic position of the country.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: When the Leader of the House was dealing earlier, with the business for next week, I asked him whether the Motion on the Order Paper relating to the proposed Adjournment of the House for the Easter Recess was to be dealt with during next week's business or this afternoon. I intimated that, whether it was dealt with next week or this afternoon. I intended to move an Amendment.
I do not know whether hon. Members heard what I said, but I made it as clear as it was possible to do. Of course, I was unaware of what Mr. Speaker was likely to do about an Amendment. I did not know whether he would allow an Amendment to be moved without producing a manuscript Amendment. If I had understood that Mr. Speaker wanted a manuscript Amendment, I should have written it out immediately and presented it to him. I have now done that.
My Amendment is quite specific. It is to leave out "7th April" and to insert "31st March".
Naturally, in debates of this kind, I have to defer to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) that I was unaware that it was the intention of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench to oppose the Motion. Certainly, I was not aware that they intended to oppose the Motion in definite and specific terms, which I have ventured to do. As I understand it, my right hon. Friend has suggested that when we adjourn next Thursday the House should not return. That is not my view of what should be agreed by the House, and I shall give my reasons.
Justification for my Amendment is contained in the claims which hon. Members have made this afternoon for chances to debate Motions which appear


on the Order Paper. May I give a few examples. The hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) demanded, not for the first time, that we should debate the urgent and important subject of repeated crimes of violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) followed that up by asking, as he has done repeatedly, for a debate on the question of compensation for those who have suffered from crimes of violence. These are very important topics. In view of the frequency of acts of violence which are reported every day in our newspapers, surely these topics are worthy of debate.
But, of course, there are other subjects which should be debated, apart from those which are represented in early day Motions on the Order Paper. This afternoon we had an extraordinary phenomenon. The Minister of Labour told us that it was the Government's intention to set up a committee of inquiry into the trade unions. That announcement met with some questioning and a measure of criticism.

Mr. C. Pannell: Not enough.

Mr. Shinwell: I describe it in blunt terms: it was blatant electioneering. There was nothing academic about it, and there was no urgency for it.
There have been suggestions in the Tory newspapers, some reputable and some hardly so reputable—I must be careful of my language, even in spite of privilege—about the need to teach the trade unions a lesson. That is, of course, the purpose of the Government's proposal. It is not related to any academic exercise. It is closely related to the desire of hon. Members opposite—not all of them, but many of them—to try to demonstrate to the electors that the Government are after the trade unions.
In reply to questions put by my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), it was stated that nothing would happen until after the General Election. Indeed, no effort has been made, so far as is known, to acquaint the trade union leaders, or the employers or their organisations with the Government's intention. It is all in the air; but it is obvious what the intention was.
If this is regarded by the Government as a matter of supreme or urgent importance, we should have the oppor-

tunity to debate it before the Recess. I make that suggestion because there will be very little time after the Easter Recess for debates of this kind. If the Government succeed in pushing the Resale Prices Bill through Committee and its subsequent stages, we shall then have the Budget and the Finance Bill—if the Government intend to push that through the House. There will be little time to discuss these other matters.
There are even more subjects which should be discussed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick referred to the remarkable statement made, I think, in another place, by Earl Jellicoe. That statement, which has not been corrected—at any rate, in a satisfactory fashion—has created some bewilderment and confusion, not only in the minds of my hon. Friends but in the minds of hon. Members opposite and of the people. We should know as soon as possible what the Government's position is, in view of Earl Jellicoe's statement about their intentions regarding the future of what is described as the independent nuclear deterrent; and there should be a debate.
There is the question of Cyprus. I hold very strong views on this matter. I shall express some of them at once, but, obviously  do not seek to debate the matter at length now. I am not at all satisfied about the United Nations' attitude. I do not know whether the United Nations is dragging its feet wilfully, or whether this dragging of feet is imposed on it by the reluctance of its members to provide the force necessary to promote peace in Cyprus.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the HANSARD reference to the remarks of Earl Jellicoe to which he takes exception?

Mr. Shinwell: I must not, in the presence of Mr. Speaker, refer to Press announcements, because they are not the subject of debate in this House; but I do not have the copy of HANSARD before me and we cannot debate the subject this afternoon. I merely refer to it. If it is incorrect, the Government will, no doubt, in this House, in the course of debate, or in reply to questions, take the opportunity of refuting or explaining the statement that has been made. That is quite sufficient.


No doubt, my hon. Friends who will follow me will have more information than I possess and will be able to deal with the subject more adequately.
I return to the subject of Cyprus. I understand that a contingent of 7,000 troops is to be formed by the United Nations and that half of them are to come from the United Kingdom. I am not at all happy about this. What worries me considerably is that they are to be under United Nations control. I am not at all sure that that is satisfactory. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite agree with me. That being so, I hope that they will support me in trying to prevent the Government forcing the Motion through the House this afternoon, for the reasons that I will now advance.
When I asked the Leader of the House about business for next week, I said that my purpose in seeking to move an Amendment was to facilitate Government business. What is the position? Three days of next week are to be devoted to the Committee stage of the Resale Prices Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that he will not get 150 Amendments through next week—of course he will not, no matter what manœuvring takes place on the other side and whatever attempt is made to placate certain interests.

Mr. Wigg: My right hon. Friend was asked to give the reference to the House of Lords debate. It is in column 720 of the House of Lords HANSARD of 17th March.

Mr. Shinwell: I do not propose to debate it this afternoon. I would not be in order in doing so. If, however, it would be in order, no doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will take advantage of the opportunity. I leave him in the hands of Mr. Deputy-Speaker. For my part, I do not want to debate the statement at length. I have referred to it as a reason why there should be a debate on the subject. It is a matter of considerable importance.
For those reasons, my view is that we ought not to adjourn for longer than I suggest, namely, over the weekend at Easter. The weather is bad and, no doubt, right hon. and hon. Members would find it far more satisfactory to

remain at home over the weekend instead of going off to Spain or the Channel Islands, or, it may be, a resort on the South Coast, or going hunting, fishing or shooting or other sports with which they are familiar.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that earlier this afternoon, the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), one of his colleagues, said that there would not be many Members in the House on Thursday? Assuming, therefore, that the hon. Lady knew that not many of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends would be present on Thursday, what is the point of suggesting that we should be here for a longer period?

Mr. Shinwell: As long as the hon. Member and myself are in the House, and nobody attempts to call a Count, we can conduct a debate on, shall I say—I want to be fair—equal terms. Often one has to speak in the House lo empty benches. Indeed, that is a subject that is worth debate. To digress for a moment, I recall that when I came to the House, way back 42 years ago, we had lively, dynamic debates, when hon. Members spoke with passion consistent with the urgency of the problems of the period. The benches were full.

Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth): How long does the right hon. Gentleman think that the debate between himself and my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) would last if there were no Press present to report what they were saying?

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) knows that sometimes I am allergic to him. I forgive him and I shall tell him why. There is no hon. Member of this House who is more concerned with publicity than the hon. Member for Louth. I do not say that offensively. I have had all the publicity I want. Sometimes, I have had the kind of publicity that I would rather not have. One must, however, take the rough with the smooth.
As for the idea that I am concerned about the Press Gallery or the Press at large, the hon. Member is quite mistaken. I say what I want to say I


sometimes say it imperfectly, but I do my best. I am not very much concerned with what the Press says and, frankly, sometimes I am not very much concerned about what the public think. Sometimes, one has to speak as one feels, and that is what I am doing this afternoon.
I do not want to detain the House. As I say, I want to facilitate Government business—[Laughter.] Let me explain that, because there seems to be doubt and suspicion about it in the minds of hon. Members. If we meet during the whole of Easter, the Government can occupy part—I hope not all—of the time in Committee on the Resale Prices Bill. That Would facilitate Government business, because it might be difficult to deal with it after then, unless the House meets in the Committee stage throughout the night. If I may use an old expression which was used by Samuel Goldwyn on one occasion, if there are to be all-night sittings "include me out".
To go through the night is not the way to conduct business. We ought to be rational and modern in our concepts of how House of Commons business should be conducted. I am quite willing to come here at ten o'clock in the morning and go on debating until dinner time rather than go through the night trying to debate when hon. Members are half asleep. Some of them—I do not specify on which bench—are always asleep. Let us conduct business in a rational fashion.
One reason why I want the Amendment to be accepted is because I am anxious to know the date of the General Election. Why are we kept in the dark? Why this mystery? What is in the Prime Minister's mind, if there is anything in his mind? Does he never confide in the Leader of the House? If it is customary for a Prime Minister to confide in the Leader of the House—or, for example, the Patronage Secretary—does he know? Does he profess ignorance about the date of the next election? Is there anybody on the Government side who knows? Is there anybody in the Press or among the public who knows? Does anybody at all know? Does only the Prime Minister know? [HON. MEMBERS: "He does not know, either."] Why this concealment?
I have got to make my arrangements. [Laughter.] Hon. Members should not regard that remark as flippant or frivolous. I have less cause to make my arrangements than many hon. Members opposite. As we sometimes say in my constituency, we do not count our votes; we weigh them. With a 28,000 majority—and it will be more this time—I need not worry like hon. Members who have marginal seats. If they want to make their arrangements, they have to discuss electioneering tactics with their election agents and their friends in the various constituencies with which they are associated.
We ough to know about this. Why must we go away during Easter? The weather looks like being bad——

Sir C. Osborne: Be cheerful.

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. Member does not need a holiday. He does not deserve it, either, although he is one of the few men who can afford it. However, I do not want to go into that, or to be personal.
I appeal to the Leader of the House to give this matter consideration. I know that he has been working very hard. know that he has had imposed on him the honourable task of leading this House, and I say sincerely that I think that, on the whole, he has done it very well. Everyone thought that he would be a complete failure. I know the right hon. and learned Gentleman better than most. I did not think that he would be a failure. We have to be very careful when we pronounce judgment in advance—it is far better to wait and see. He has done very well.
I know that he has been working very hard and we congratulate him on his ability to carry the House with him, as he has done on several occasions. I hope that on this occasion he will consider the views expressed on this side of the House and which I hope will be expressed on the other side. I hope that the hon. Member for Louth will come to my aid; I am willing to appoint him as my aide-de-camp right away.
I leave the right hon. and learned Gentleman with this consideration. We rise on Thursday, we have Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday—four days.


What more do we want? If hon. Members want to know how to enjoy themselves in four days, I shall give them my recipe for enjoyment; and, by the way, it leads to good health and, if I may say so—I must touch wood—to longevity. I will give them all the prescriptions they want. If it is enough for me, it ought to be enough for everybody else.
My hon. Friends believe in short speeches. That is another topic which we ought to be debating. There is quite a collection of hon. Members now who have joined together for the purpose of promoting the short speeches idea—five minutes. Of course, some of them never speak at all. They take their pensions and leave it at that. But why the five-minute speech? Why limit the time of speeches? Some of them want to get at Privy Councillors and prevent them from speaking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]. I said that quite deliberately in order to draw that response, because I want to say this: if one consults the pages of HANSARD one discovers that hon. Members, some of whom have come into the House within the last few years, speak at greater length than any Privy Councillor in the House. I am quite willing to challenge that—and even have a bet that what I say is accurate. I must take advantage of this opporunity of taking part in a debate of this kind.
I repeat my appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Take four days—that is quite enough. The public will not complain. The Press will not complain. It will be very glad to listen to us—it will not report us, but that does not matter. We could debate various topics, including all the topics contained in the early day Motions on the Order Paper. I could think of many other topics—such as the world situation, the economic situation, and unemployment. We could illuminate each other's minds. Four days are enough.
Therefore, I put forward my Amendment in the hope that I shall receive adequate support from both sides of the House, and it will be accepted. I beg to move to leave out "7th April" and to insert "31st March".

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West): The Minister of Labour came to the House this afternoon to make the most nebulous announcement that I have ever heard. What he said, without consulting either the British Employers' Confederation or Trades Union Congress was that after the next election the Conservative Government, if returned, would institute an inquiry into trade unions and the law.
What was the object of that? There was no consultation at all. This is typical of the way in which the Government treat the organised trade union movement. Why was it done? Presumably, in the unlikely event of the Government being re-elected, we should have such an inquiry in response to the demands from the Tory benches. If, for the fourth successive time, this country elects a Conservative Government, the trade union movement will deserve an inquiry. Speaking only last night, I said that there was no doubt at all that if the Conservatives were returned the trade union movement had better look out. No one could fail to notice the activity on the benches opposite following the recent House of Lords decision. The law has been as the law is since 1906, but we have had a decision in the House of Lords.
I do not know what the decision means. I can only say that when I consulted my lawyer friends they did not seem to be agreed on the subject, either. When I consulted a pundit in the trade union movement, he said, "I do not know what it means, except that the best lawyers tell me that it means something pretty awful". But it is as nebulous as it could be. Nobody knows the state of the law.

Mr. K. Lewis: Does not that by itself justify an inquiry?

Mr. Pannell: What is the hon. Member's experience of the trade union movement? Has he ever been on strike?

Mr. Lewis: Since the hon. Gentleman challenges me on that, may I say that I have considerable experience in the trade union movement. My father was for many years a member of a union and he is an old-age pensioner of his union now. For many years I was


in charge of labour relations in a very large shipyard, dealing with a very large number of unions. I do not put that to my credit, but as the hon. Member has asked me, I have told him.

Mr. Pannell: The hon. Member cannot hide behind his father. His father holds a ticket, so he presumes to be able to talk here for him.

Mr. Lewis: What about my second point?

Mr. Pannell: Presumably the hon. Member represented the employers. I do not recognise the authority of the Members on the benches opposite—who have they who is in the trade union movement? [An HON. MEMBER; "One."] They have one, and he is Assistant Postmaster-General, a member of the E.T.U. when it was at the nadir of its fortunes. When did the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) ever rise to challenge what was happening in his own union? He was completely silent, completely craven. He is the hon. Member who is trotted out by the Conservative Party to show that it has a trade unionist in the House.
The hon. Member for Totnes has just arrived, behind the Bar. But I never let him interrupt me, because I do not think that he knows anything about anything. We have all known that from the time he came into the House. Where are the trade unionists on the Conservative side of the House?

Sir Stephen McAdden: Here.

Mr. Pannell: I thought that the hon. Member belonged to the Bookmakers' Protection Association.

Sir S. McAdden: If the hon. Member does not want to take my interjection seriously, and to know whether I am a trade unionist, at least he need not descend to the depths of being insulting about it.

Mr. Pannell: That is all right. Look at the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), reading a document about the South of England and lounging in his place. He had better get his mind on to the North of England—or is he looking for a seat after the next General Election? He is bound

to lose his own. He is living on borrowed time.

Mr. Paul Williams: I am hoping to take part later in a debate on unemployment in the North-East, and we should like to get on with it.

Mr. Pannell: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Member to read that document in the House?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): It is generally taken that hon. Members are at liberty to read what will be relevant in their speeches, if they are looking forward to making speeches.

Mr. Pannell: But the hon. Member intends to make a speech about the North-East, and he is reading a document about the South.

Mr. P. Williams: On a point of order. Before the hon. Member interrupted me I was reading a passage in the document which is a reference to the North and Northumbria.

Mr. Pannell: Under the strict rules of order hon. Members may read documents which are relevant to the debate before the ouse. The document which the hon. Member is reading is not relevant to the debate now before the House. I think that the hon. Member is out of order. The document is relevant to a debate which will take place later. I hope that I have the support of the Chair in this contention.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is the common practice, when a debate is expected to take place in the near future, for hon. Members to engage themselves in reading their notes and preparing for the debate in which they hope to take part. I took it that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) was doing no more than that. But I appreciate that the matter could be ruled on more strictly, and perhaps it would be better if the hon. Member were to leave the document which he is reading.

Mr. P. Williams: On a point of order, It may well be that if I pursue this document far enough the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) will provoke me to take something out of it in order to take part in the debate.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point of order. If the nature of the document which the hon. Member is reading is an indication that he does not propose to trouble us in the matters with which the House is presently concerned, ought we not to welcome that and to give him every encouragement?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that that is a point of order.

Mr. Pannell: In his statement this afternoon perhaps the Minister of Labour had in mind the almost certainty that the Labour Party would be returned at the next election. The idea of announcing this inquiry is to lay down a source of embarrassment for an incoming Labour Government. We have had a quite worthless statement this afternoon. It was far too hypothetical. Nothing depends upon its acceptance or non-acceptance. It is simply a kite flown to please the non-unionists and antitrade unionists of the 1922 Committee. As such, it will be noted up and down the country. Hon. Members opposite are never so foolish as when they talk about the trade union movement, because they understand nothing about it. The Labour Party was largely founded by the trade unions to defend themselves against the grandfathers of hon. Members opposite.
It therefore seems to me that the statement which we had this afternoon was the most useless statement which I can remember during the last 14 years. It meant nothing.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but we are not debating that statement. We are debating whether the words "7th April" should stand part of the Question.

Mr. Pannell: There are plenty of precedents for this. There was a famous speech in the House which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain started at 5 p.m., and at 7.40 p.m., he said, "Having explored a few prefatory remarks‖." I had not been speaking for that length of time before coming to my argument. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington referred to it more than in passing, and I should not like to think that there was a discrimination against

back bench Members in favour of Privy Councillors.
This statement was made this afternoon, and it is one of the reasons why, when we rise, we should rise for good and should have an election before we come back, so that this matter can be put completely beyond peradventure and we shall not have statements in the House based upon hypothetical considerations which are never likely to arise.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) made a point which Mr. Speaker did not rule out of order—that we must guard against premature appointments by the Government to ensure that their friends are well looked after in their hour of defeat. These are considerations before the House. It seems to me that it would be far better when we rise for us to rise for good and for the dissolution to be pronounced, giving an opportunity for the election of a Parliament which represents the country.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but we are debating a specific Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). It is that the words "31st March" take the place of the words "7th April". Questions of dissolution and General Elections can be debated on the main Question, but not on this Amendment.

Mr. Pannell: I am sorry about that. I misunderstood the position. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick moved a Motion, and that we had before the House the main Question, on which he was allowed to address the House for a considerable time.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) was speaking on the main Question. But since then an Amendment has been moved by the right hon. Member for Easington Shinwell) and we are now debating the Amendment before we come back to the main Question.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Are we not debating the Question, That the words "7th April" stand part of the Question? I understood that my hon.


Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) was addressing himself to that subject. He did not like those words standing part of the Question.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point of order. May I have your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? It is true that the immediate Question on the Amendment which my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) moved is to leave out the last four words of the Government motion as they stand on the Order Paper. He gave his reasons for moving that. He wants to remove those words in order to replace them by other words.
Many of us may be in favour of the first leg of his Amendment, as it were, and not in favour of the second. In other words, one may be in favour of leaving out "7th April" so as to insert words other than those which my right hon. Friend wants to insert. For example, I should like to put in "10th November, 1964", which would meet the purpose which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) has in mind.
If the words "7th April" stand part of the Question, and if my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington loses his Amendment, there will be no place for any further Amendment. I understand that. But my right hon. Friend may win. If the words "7th April" are left out of the Question, it does not follow that the House will agree to put in "31st March". It would then be open to give notice of a further Amendment to put in another date. It therefore surely cannot be wrong in debating the Question whether "7th April" stand part of the Question to give reasons which may be different reasons from those given by my right hon. Friend. Surely one has to consider not merely what my right hon. Friend moved, but the reasons which he gave for moving it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. As I understand the Amendment, in the event of the words "7th April" not being agreed to by the House, it would be incumbent on the Chair to put the Question, "That the words '31st March' be there inserted." So our debate is restricted to a choice between those dates on this Amendment.

Mr. Silverman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With great respect, I submit that that cannot be right. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) were to succeed in leaving out the words, "7th April" it would be incumbent upon the Chair to put the words that he proposes in place of them. But my recollection is that that part of the Amendment would then have to be put without debate, unless some further Amendment had been accepted. Therefore, if we are to say that the 31st March is not the date on which we should return, we have to say it now because there will be no other opportunity.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Charles Pannell. Further to the Amendment.

Mr. C. Pannell: With very great respect, I can hardly blame the Chair for getting us in a tangle, but the action of the Chair has rather led to this situation, because Mr. Speaker allowed debate to open on the statement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), in which my right hon. Friend said that he did not want Parliament to come back at all. I want to indicate my agreement with that view. I believe that it was Mr. Speaker who called my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington in the first place. I do not think that he called him to closure the debate, but was merely giving the well-known precedence to Privy Councillors.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) is mistaken. His prejudice against Privy Councillors is a sort of King Charles's head with him. I do not know whether my hon. Friend was in the House at the time. If he was, he will know that Mr. Speaker accepted a manuscript Amendment from me. This was the first manuscript Amendment to be presented to Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Pannell: I am not pursuing this. No prejudice is involved. I am merely tracing the course of the debate. Several right hon. and hon. Members were on their feet and it would certainly not have been in Mr. Speaker's mind to use any stratagem at all which would have closured the main Question. As I understand it now, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you


have accepted finally the submission of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman).

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I wonder whether I might clear up any possible misunderstanding. We are now having a debate on the manuscript Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). When that Question has been decided—and, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) pointed out, it is decided in two portions—the House will come back to the original Question, when all the points that the hon. Member for Leeds, West, wishes to make would be in order.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. This would only be so on the hypothetical assumption, which, I think, it would be a little optimistic to make, that the House would agree to take these words out of the Motion. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) should be defeated on a Division, so that the words "7th April" continue to stand part, the Question would then be decided and there would be _nothing further to discuss except whether we accept it or do not accept it.
Of course, if my right hon. Friend should succeed and these words came out, then there would be a gap in the Motion which the House would no doubt be given an opportunity of filling either with his words or with some other words. If we are not content to leave these words out to substitute "31st March" and we do not give our reasons for that now we shall never have an opportunity to do so.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that perhaps it would be as well to see how we get on dealing with the Amendment that the House is now considering. The House will bear in mind that the original Question must be put subsequently when further possibilities for debate will arise.

Mr. C. Pannell: If that is your Ruling then, of course, I accept it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I regret the misunderstanding. I am sure that we all do.
I cannot agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington that the House should only have four days Recess at Easter because I feel that the House has been dying on its feet for a long time. Yesterday, there was an important debate on housing and the night before we had another important debate, on house building. On that occasion only one speech, that of the Minister, was made from the benches opposite. All the rest were made by right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House. Very few hon. Members opposite even came to listen to that debate. I do not know where they were.
Again, the number of occupants of the benches opposite during the housing debate yesterday was a reflection either of physical incapacity or of lack of integrity or on the capacity of hon. Members opposite to apply themselves to their duties. If it is suggested that people in that sort of state only need four days' break at Easter I must dissent.
Right hon. and hon. Members opposite need a very much longer holiday. In all the circumstances, the other course proposed—that this Parliament should end altogether, so that a new House can be elected—would be far better. We should have younger men, perhaps full of energy—[An HON. MEMBER: "The right hon. Member for Easington"]—I do not correlate youth with years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington is one of the liveliest Members in the House. He is present today, he makes speeches, and is conspicuous by his regular attendance. I am speaking of all those hon. Members opposite who are earning their livings in other places and do not make this House the first priority.
For three days next week we are to have debates which can be summed up by Omar Khayyam:
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—"Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more.
That is what will happen to hon. Members opposite after the next election and it is the best thing that can happen. Four days rest at Easter would not be enough for those tired men.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Perhaps I could assist the House by intervening at this point to deal, first, with the "one weekend" Amendment with a view to our returning to the main Question.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I wish to speak on the Amendment.

Mr. Lloyd: Then I will try again later.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I wish strongly to support the Amendment. On the Order Paper there is a Motion in my name and the names of some of my hon. Friends relating to the deplorable act of the Minister of Transport in relation to British Railways. The Motion
deplores the refusal of the Minister of Transport to allow British Railways to tender for the manufacture of wagons and containers for private rail users which has thus prevented free competition between the public and private sectors of the railway manufacturing industry.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Mr. Robert Cookerose——

Mr. Allen: I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has just come in.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Cooke rose——

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Allen: I have waited patiently for an opportunity to speak. This is an important subject. I have only just begun and I want to continue without interruption for a little while.
As I was saying, the Minister's action has prevented free competition between the public and private sectors of the railway manufacturing industry. It is well known that I represent one of the most important railway workshops in the country but I speak not only for Crewe in wanting this matter debated on Tuesday, 31st March, which could well be arranged if we did not adjourn for as long as the Government wish.
Without the knowledge of those whom I represent, or those who represent them in the trade unions, we read in the Press one day of an obtuse political decision made by the Minister of Transport. He decided that the railway workshops, paid for with taxpayers' money, should not be allowed to carry out contracts which they had won for the construction of railway wagons for B.P. and

Shell-Mex. The contract for the construction of these wagons would have earned the workshop £16 million, yet they were prevented from carrying out the work.
The railway workshops at Shildon in the face of competition from 13 private enterprise firms, won a contract for the construction of cement carriers. That contract has also been cancelled by the Minister of Transport—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Member. He is well within order in mentioning problems which would justify him wishing the House to sit on different days, but I think that it is getting outside order to go into the details of those problems.

Mr. Allen: I accept what you say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I cannot make my protest unless I am allowed to give the basic facts on which I desire the House to come back on 31st March. It is no use my saying that I want to come back to debate what the Minister of Transport said. I must give the reason why it is urgent that we should discuss the matter, and it is urgent because the Minister of Transport has taken away from the railway workshops, for which we in this House are responsible, massive contracts which were won against competition from private enterprise, and prevented them from earning money which would reduce the burden on the taxpayer who is called on to contribute to British Railways' deficits.
That money could be earned by our own nationalised workshops by carrying out contracts which have been won in the face of fierce competition from private enterprise. I want a decision of this House on the matter. This is an example of Conservative doctrinaire politics ruriot. I am speaking for Crewe, for Shildon, for Swindon, and for 20 or 30 railway workshops, some of which have been shut down, and many of which have declared workers redundant. Unless the Minister's decision is reversed, many more workers in railway workshops will be declared redundant. I feel very intensely about this matter.
It was bad enough to debar the railway workshops from general competition with private, enterprise, but if they are


not to be allowed to make the goods which run on their own railway lines, if they are not to be allowed to make the goods which they can make much cheaper than 13 private enterprise firms can, the time has come for them to be sold and for the Act to be torn up.
I believe that the Minister of Transport should be brought to the House to answer for his arbitrary decision for which, in my judgment, there is no justification or basis. We are taunted in this House and in the country with the alleged failure of the nationalised industries. I am giving an example of how a nationalised industry, in the face of competition from 13 private enterprise firms, has won large contracts. The profits from those contracts could ease the burden on the taxpayer.
If this is not a question which ought to be decided very quickly, I know not one, because if the Minister's decision is not altered and if the railway workshops are deprived of those contracts, the works will be thrown out of gear. They are ready to carry out these contracts, and I want the Minister to justify his decision, and the sooner he does it the better. Tuesday, 31st March will suit me and those in this House who represent railway towns.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) has moved that the words "7th April" be deleted. That is the Question which the House is now considering. I am enthusiastically in support of that proposition. I, too, do not want those words to remain in the Motion.
My right hon. Friend gave his reasons. He thought that that date meant that the House of Commons would be adjourned for too long. I am in support of his proposition, for the opposite reason. The proposed Adjournment of the House is too short. It is too short for the reason which my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) gave at the commencement of the discussion. The Adjournment proposed is too short because it does not extend until the electorate has had the opportunity of considering the whole record of the Government and deciding

whether it wishes to continue to be governed by the present Government, or whether it wishes to change it for another.
The reasons that my right hon. Friend gave for not being content with the words "7th April" were that the Government were now governing without authority, that they are not able to deal adequately, or in a way which really represents the interests of this country or its wishes, with any of the questions which they have to consider. If we were to come back on Tuesday, 7th April, we would, indeed, be faced with discussing all those questions which my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington stated. We would have to discuss questions about nuclear weapons. We would have to discuss the important question, about which there is considerable doubt, of international relations. We would have to discuss how to deal with the rapidly worsening economic situation, however it may he camouflaged or covered up by plausible but false interpretations of monthly statistics.
I do not want the House of Commons to discuss any of those questions, because it is not competent to deal with them. It has, in Cromwell's words, been sitting here too long for any good it has been doing, and, therefore, it ought not to sit any longer. If the Government were in the middle of their constitutional period of office, that would be a different question, but they are not. They are at the tail end of it, and everybody knows that but for inadvertent circumstances which had little if anything to do with public affairs, there would indeed have been a General Election last October.
But we have outlived all that and the Government hang on from day to day. I do not say that they are living on borrowed time, because constitutionally they are entitled to go on until some time at the end of October, or maybe a few days beyond that, but this right is a purely constitutional one. It is not a moral right. The Leader of the House and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury are the only Members of the Government at present in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman is the only opponent who has fought me more than once in my constituency. He came back for a second dose.
He is the only one who did. That is all that can be said in his favour, so far as I know. Whom does he think that the Government represents? What moral authority does he think he has to deal with any of the questions which my hon. and right hon. Friends rightly say urgently require to he dealt with? No doubt they do urgently require attention, but they need the attention of a Government with a moral and constitutional authority to deal with them, knowing that they have a mandate from the people. That, the Government know they have not got. They are not postponing the date of the General Election because they think there are some useful tasks they can perform in the meantime.
What satisfaction does my hon. and learned Friend think that he would get if, on 31st March, or perhaps 1st April, the Government were to deal with the questions that he has raised? He would make an eloquent speech—a powerful and convincing speech, just as he made today, if I may say so without being impertinent. But what would he get in return? He would receive a perfunctory reply from the Front Bench; the Government would put the Whips on, and if there were a Division all the sheep would follow into the Lobby, and my hon. and learned Friend would be voted down. He would have had his discussion, but nothing else.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I have no doubt that behind me would be the Member for one of the big railway works, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.

Mr. Silverman: If my hon. and learned Friend really thinks that, I can only express my astonishment. He knows that the hon. Gentleman would not go into the Division Lobby contrary to the wishes and directions of the Government.

Mr. Shinwell: I am surprised at my hon. Friend, who is an excellent Parliamentarian. If what he is suggesting is true, there is no use in having debates at all. There is no use in the Opposition's raising a debate, because they know what the answer will be. I would point out that the duty of an Opposition is not only to oppose but to present their case. My hon. Friend has done that so often in the House that I am surprised that he now takes the other view.

Mr. Silverman: Of course the duty of on Opposition is to oppose, and we do oppose. But my hon. and learned Friend was not appealing to a Member of the Opposition; he was appealing to a Member of the Government and was expressing the optimistic and, I think, insincere opinion that a Member of the Government would regard it as his duty to oppose. Of course he would not.
My point is that I do not want these questions any longer to be dominated and controlled and directed by a Government who have lost all moral authority to govern. Let us postpone our return for a little while. It may not be for very long. If we carry the Amendment and the words are removed the Government will be compelled to announce the date of the General Election and get on with it, because we would not have a "phoney" Parliament—a Parliament without authority; a Parliament that has exhausted its functions and which is in no position to decide anything in the name of the people. The Government would have to give the people an opportunity of electing an Administration which had such authority.
I know that with all these Motions it is customary to have a little fun now and again by asking for earlier recalls that we de not really want. But the Motions art moved because they give us an opportunity to call attention to matters which urgently need attention. This, however, is not a Motion of that kind. This Motion is intended to challenge the whole right of the Government to carry on pretending to be a Government in a Parliament that is pretending to be a Parliament—and pretending not very successfully. The Government's delay in calling a General Election is bringing the whole system of democracy into contempt.
What are we doing here? What debates are serious? Who attends them? Even now, when we are discussing the very basis of Government authority, how many Members are in the House? Not a single speech has yet been made from the Government side in support of the Motion. Nobody has risen. That is no reflection on the Chair. The Chair cannot call Members alternately from both sides if Members from only one side seek to catch his eye. Nobody believes that the Government are entitled to govern. Nobody


believes that if they submit themselves to a General Election they will come back with a right to govern. They know that many of them will not come back. If they are in favour of carrying on in that hypocritical and humbugging way it is only because they want to hang on to their seats in Parliament for as long as they can, to postpone the evil day and to hope, like Micawber, that something will turn up.
Nothing will turn up. The longer the election is postponed the worse it will be for the Government, for the Conservative Party, and certainly for the country. Let hon. Members opposite not deceive themselves. The General Election will result in a Labour landslide—and they know it. The country is thoroughly tired of the Conservative Party. They have seen them for too long—for 12 years too long—and they know it, and the Conservative Party knows it, and the Government know it. Why should they go on pretending that we can all go away for a few days and come back after the Easter Recess just as if we were really a Parliament, and they were really a Government?
It is nonsense, and I hope that we will have the courage to say so and not continue this empty farce of coming here day after day, having Order Papers and Questions, sometimes with votes and sometimes not with votes; sometimes with opposition and sometimes with no opposition; sometimes with proposals from the Government and sometimes without; sometimes with Government proposals supported by the hon. Members behind them, and sometimes with Government proposals opposed by the hon. Members behind them. How long are we to carry on this fashion?
Let us make an end of it. Let us decide now that we will rise next Thursday and that we will not come back until the electorate has had an opportunity of passing judgment on what we have been up to since 1959.

Mr. Thorpe: On a point of order. Can you give the House a little guidance, Sir William? I appreciate that we are discussing the Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), but once that has been voted upon one way or another, will it be in order for us to have a debate on the

substantive Motion amended or un-amended, as the case may be?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is correct. The original Question is open to debate.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I rise to support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Both he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) were here when I first came to the House. I am sure that they share my view that if we are interested in preserving our democratic ways, and maintaining respect for the institution of Parliament, we should be deeply concerned at the fact that everyone's mind is now on the election, and that our further attendance at the House of Commons becomes a reflection upon us rather than a credit to us. I should have thought that the Leader of the House would be deeply concerned at this, because he is responsible to the whole House. I share his view. I think that the Government have lost their moral authority.
The Prime Minister speaks in the country as the leader of the Conservative Party and not as Prime Minister. I do not object to that. But it means that we have reached a stage when we have not a Government and Opposition but two parties preparing for a General Election. From the standpoint of Parliament and the country that is bad. I share the view of my hon. Friends that we ought to rise next week and not come back until the electorate have had an opportunity to elect a new Parliament.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman will remember—I do not know whether he heard the manuscript Amendment—that the House is debating the Question, to leave out 7th April and insert 31st March.

Mr. Griffiths: I was coming to that. If we are to come back, I was proposing to give reasons why the Amendment should be supported.
I am sorry that I was unable to be present in the Chamber at the end of Question Time. I had another point which I wished to put, and it is also a reason why we should come back. I


understand that a remarkable statement was made by the Minister of Labour, and I hope that I may be able to say a word about it, and about why it is a reason that we should come back.
I am an old trade unionist and trade union leader, and I want to say a word to the Leader of the House and to the Prime Minister. I have never heard anything like this before. I understand that something is to be done about trade unions after the election, that there is to be an inquiry. Why was such a statement made now? I wish to know from the Leader of the House whether this matter was discussed in all its implications. It is a bit of electioneering.
This is not a question of discussing a big problem about industrial relations. It is to provide an opportunity for the Conservative Party to talk about this matter and to delude the electorate that it represents the main issue and that other things are not important. One more reason why I think that we ought to come back after the Easter Recess is the party opposite has become completely irresponsible. It was a very irresponsible act by the Minister of Labour on behalf of the Government, to announce that there will be an inquiry of this kind without consulting either of the organisations representing the two sides of industry.
We are at the beginning of a great new scientific and technological revolution. Enormous problems will have to be solved in every industry in the future resulting from these changes. During the next five, ten or fifteen years the relationship between trade unions and employers, between industry and the Government and between the Government and the T.U.C. will be vital, whatever Government are in power.
When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Leader of the House was responsible for setting up N.E.D.C., and the present and future Chancellors of the Exchequer will be asking the Trades Union Congress and employers to join in an attempt to work out an incomes policy. Is this the way to treat organisations upon whose actions so much of the future welfare of our country depends? For that reason alone I believe that we should return. We are often charged by hon. Members opposite with being irresponsible, but

this is the most irresponsible thing that I have experienced in the sphere of industrial relations since I came to this House. I recall the time when the Tory Government, which were then in office, were attacking the trade unions, and the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, stopped them.
Although, fortunately, the party opposite will not be in office after the next election, I am sure that they will regret that they have introduced this matter, for purely partisan purposes and in order to raise false issues at the election, at a time when industrial relations are better than they have been. My trade union life was lived during the 1920s. I could say a great deal about that time and how the employers used the power which they then had. I should like to pay tribute to my colleagues in the trade union movement who now have more power that they have possessed for many years and who have used it in a more responsible fashion than did the employers when they possessed power. I could speak with experience of how the employers used their power to persecute and victimise people and attack the trade unions.
Members of the trade union organisation have acted in a statesmanlike manner. They have exhibited great restraint and responsibility in the use of the power which they possess. This, in my view, is a reason why the present Parliament should continue after the Easter Recess, and so I support my right hon. Friend's Amendment. We ought to discuss this matter at the earliest opportunity so that Parliament may rescue our country from the irresponsible actions of a Government who have thrown this big question into the election arena for partisan purposes. I support the Amendment.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I should like to endorse the statements of my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), who paid a tribute to he Leader of the House. I have often come into conflict with Leaders of the House during the last twelve yews and, like other hon. Members, I have formed my views. I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is about the best Leader of the House that we have had. I remember


when he was Minister of Defence—he was a very good Minister of Defence—he bravely introduced a differential and took constructive steps which had a profound effect on the manpower structure of the Armed Forces. I am glad to pay that tribute to him. I think that he has done extremely well during the last few months and has done his best to guide the House. His task has been made a little easier because, in watching the performance of one Minister, one compares it with other Ministers.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been a great success, but one must sympathise with hon. Gentlemen opposite on having been landed with the present Prime Minister. I am one who always admired the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan). One observed his commanding presence and his capacity to dominate the House and lead his party. Then one remembers that last week during the discussion on the Resale Prices Bill, when one of his colleagues was under great pressure and the party opposite split in all directions, the Prime Minister was electioneering. I think that is a correct judgment of this man.

Mr. S. Silverman: What would he be doing if he were here?

Mr. Wigg: I am not saying what he might have done had he been here. I am pointing out that the right hon. Gentleman was not here. Members of the party opposite pride themselves on standing by their friends if they are in a hole, and the fact that the Prime Minister was missing when his colleagues, as he knew, were under pressure, seems to be to sum up this man. It is true, as has been said, that the right hon. Gentleman represents nobody but himself. He has gone swanning off to Nigeria, and for all practical purposes he is a private citizen. He carries no authority whatever. He has not even got the guts to have a few by-elections. He is shivering in his shoes and making speeches. What makes me angry about him is that he reverses the process which I have tried to encourage during the whole time I have been in this House. That is to elevate the subject of defence above party. Deliberately, in the first speech he made in this House, he did exactly the opposite.
Only this week we had another example. If ever there were an example why the House should meet on 31st March it is in the speeches of the Prime Minister on the one hand and the First Lord of the Admiralty on the other. These do not make sense. The Prime Minister deliberately goes out of his way to carry major questions on defence to the hustings on grounds which are quite incorrect—I use the word "improper". Lord Jellicoe is following the Prime Minister's example. In another place he said of my hon. Friends that they would
make a bonfire of our bombers; or chop up our Polaris submarines in two, as Mr. Wilson and Mr. Healey have suggested …
I appeal to the Leader of the House as an ex-Minister of Defence. Is there any hon. Member opposite who will support those words and say that my right hon. Friends——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member will be aware of the restricted Question that is before the House on the Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: I am conscious of that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I do not want to bore my hon. Friends, but I say that we ought to come back on 31st March in order that the Prime Minister can be brought to account for statements of this kind. They are made right, left and centre and the Tory Press yells them from the house-tops.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: What about the Navy?

Mr. Wigg: What I am concerned about is the First Lord of the Admiralty. He made the statement in another place, and it is absolutely untrue. He said it because he is a perfectly honourable, straightforward man and was repeating what the Prime Minister believes. As I have said in previous debates, the charge against the Prime Minister—and it is a devastating one—is that he really believes what he says. This man of a mean intelligence says this so often that he has convinced himself that these statements are true.
Therefore we get Ministers of the Crown in another place making statements of that kind and hon. Members opposite have not even the grace to apologise and deny them.
The quotation I have made is printed in the Press, but when my noble Friends asked the First Lord of the Admiralty his authority for saying that he said:
I will gladly withdraw."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 17th March, 1964; Vol. 256, c. 720–1.]
He made the statement and then withdrew it. The statement is printed in the Press, but the withdrawal is not. It is propagated from John o' Groats to Land's End that my hon. Friends have said that they would make a bonfire of the bombers and chop Polaris submarines in two. Let us assume that one could make a bonfire of the bombers, how is it possible to chop Polaris submarines in two when we have not got them, and will not have them until 1968?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but I cannot see how whether or not we meet on 7th April or 31st March can affect the chopping in two of a Polaris submarine.

Mr. Wigg: I entirely agree with the Chair. The fact of whether we meet on 7th April or 31st March—or, as I suggest in this context, more appropriately on All Fool's Day—would not make the slightest difference to whether we made a bonfire of the bombers or chopped Polaris submarines in two, because they do not exist.
I support the Amendment because on 31st March the House ought to meet to call the Prime Minister to account. The foolish statements which are being made, the propaganda which is being carried on and the tendentious statements made every time the Prime Minister opens his mouth show that he has lowered the tone of British politics in the six months he has been Prime Minister more than at any time since 1931.

Mr. S. Silverman: I follow the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) quite clearly that the First Lord of the Admiralty and Prime Minister ought to be called to account. The difference between us is that whereas he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington want the Prime Minister and his Friends called to account in a so-called House of Commons on 31st March, I prefer that he should be called for account in

the country it a General Election. Then we should not be troubled with them again.

Mr. Wigg: I do not see that my hon. Friend's wishes or wants in the matter exclude mire. The difference in our political philosophy is that he is always concerned about the far horizons. I am concerned with here and now. This House is being asked to adjourn next Thursday until 7th April. I am willing to have a General Election tomorrow. In the meantime, I support the Amendment to come back on 31st March in order that the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Prime Minister should give an account to the House of Commons of how an utterly dishonest, untrue statement such as that can be made on the authority of the Minister of Defence.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am fearful that if the Government have their way the General Election will be on a far horizon getting farther and farther off. I want to get those horizons nearer; then we can deal with them practically.

Mr. Wigg: I fail to see, if we take account of the Representation of the People Act, how the horizons can go further away. The election will be on 14th May, 28th May, 4th June, or 11th June.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. Again I must call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that we are discussing only whether we should come back from the Easter Recess on 7th April or 31st March. Nothing more is at present under discussion.

Mr. Wigg: I apologise to the House. I have been led astray by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman. I share his view that this House of Commons is now dead. I thought it died last autumn——

Mr. J. M. L. Prior: Who has done the most talking?

Mr. Wigg: Certainly, but with the most effect. I shall continue doing more talking with a little more effect.
We have been told that at the election —and this has guided the Prime Minister—defence issues shall be taken to the electorate. The charge was made that we wantonly wanted to throw away our nuclear deter rent. Statement after statement has been made by the Prime


Minister and Minister of Defence that under no circumstances whatever would they abrogate or weaken our nuclear deterrent, but what did the First Lord of the Admiralty say?:
I do not wish now to claim that it would necessarily be right for this country to wish to retain this option for all time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 17th March, 1964; Vol. 256. c, 720.]
Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. Either the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence are making statements which they know to be untrue, or the First Lord of the Admiralty is making a statement which he knows to be untrue.
The facts are quite clear. The First Lord of the Admiralty is an honest, honourable man. The statement he made about making a bonfire of the bombers and chopping up submarines which we have not got is part of the propaganda line of the Prime Minister. The First Lord also said in another place that in fact we have not got a deterrent and even if we had a vestige of a deterrent the time is fast approaching when we would have to give it up. The Prime Minister is saying exactly the opposite. I do not want to dwell on this subject for too long but——

Mr. Robert Cooke: Will the hon. Gentleman read the rest of the relevant part of the First Lord's speech?

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Member has been listening to me speaking for some time. If he wants to he can read the whole of the speech to hon. Members. I have merely been pointing out that the First Lord renounced what the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence had said. The latter two Members of the Government have said time and again that, in all circumstances, we must retain the deterrent because it would be misleading to the country to suggest that if we got rid of it we could still have influence in the world. Time and again the Prime Minister has said that, but now, in another place, the First Lord told the country that in future we can get rid of the deterrent. Not only that, the First Lord went on to describe what the deterrent consists of and then he charged my hon. and right hon. Friends with wanting

to chop the Polaris in two—and apparently the poor dear man does not know that we do not have the Polaris, even though he is the First Lord of the Admiralty.
What is the fundamental reason why I want the House to meet on 31st March? I believe that if we are going to have a defence policy at all it must be a sound one and the country must find the means and money to support it. More important, the electorate expects the House of Commons to be able to account for every shilling that is spent and to ensure that the country is getting value for money. Hardly a day goes by when we do not have a scandal of one sort or another.
Yesterday, for example, we had the Air Force Appropriation Accounts. I do not know how many hon. Members studied them, but they will find on page IV an account of how 660,000 gallons of diesel oil were stolen in four years when the whole matter was under consideration. That is only a fleabite—around a million gallons of diesel oil—but it is no reason why right hon. Gentlemen opposite should make speeches designed especially for the hustings.
This brings me to the Ferranti affair. This is one of the most serious cases with which the House of Commons has been faced. Here, in a vital sector of defence, evidence is established to show that, from some cause or other, very considerable sums have been made by a firm, the affairs of which are now being investigated post-haste by the Government, the Laing Committee and, according to the Rulings of the Chair, we are permitted to know that the Accounting Officer of the Ministry of Aviation has appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. We know that Mr. Ferranti, the chairman, has also appeared before that Committee.
Millions of pounds are involved in this affair and I believe that the investigations will show that not only the Bloodhound contract is involved. I believe that there are others. I want an investigation into, for example, the modernisation of H.M.S. "Eagle", although for the moment the reason I want the House to meet on 31st March is because I want the Government to tell hon. Members when the Laing Committee will meet and


when the Public Accounts Committee will report because this House—and I am referring to every hon. Member of it —should demand from the Government an account of what happened in the Bloodhound affair. Unless all hon. Members seek this information before going away for the Easter holidays they will not be discharging their duty. If there is one thing the House of Commons must do it is to call the Government to account on the expenditure of public money, particularly in matters of defence.
It is for these reasons that I have made the remarks I have about the Leader of the House. He is a great Parliamentarian. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the courage to stand by his views, even though it meant his political career suffering. He was trying to see that the financial affairs of the country were handled on a proper basis, a basis which commended itself to him. Surely, as Leader of the House of Commons, as a man and as an hon. Member who, when on the back benches, paid a great deal of attention to these matters, he must realise that the Ferranti affair is a matter of the greatest seriousness. This is not a question of financial probity. I am not and have not made any allegations, but if contracts are placed and if it is stated by the Public Accounts Committee that very considerable sums of money, ranging up to 60 per cent. of the total, may have been made out of the account for a weapon which is vital to the security of this country then, as Leader of the House, and as a private hon. Member—the same as any other private hon. Member—the right hon. Gentleman should consider it his duty to see that the House is kept informed.
I am willing to resume my seat and say no more on one condition; that the Leader of the House gives an assurance that the Laing Report will be laid before the House at the earliest possible opportunity and that, when laid, he will give an undertaking that he will find time to debate the matter before the General Election. I emphasise the word "before" in that context because this is of vital importance to us all.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: I rise to oppose the Adjournment of the House unless the House receives two

assurances from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the House.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Before the hon. Gentleman goes too far in that direction, he will be aware that we are now debating a manuscript Amendment and that to oppose the Adjournment of the House would not be in order because we have two alternative dates, but the Motion is not being opposed.

Mr. Mendelson: I am glad of your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I was going on to say that while being opposed to the Adjournment I would be prepared to vote for the Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) if the Leader of the House fails to give two assurances which we must demand of him.
Both of the issues I wish to raise are matters of capital importance. The first concerns the Ferranti affair, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has referred. On several occasions wt have pressed the Minister of Aviation to report on the progress that is being made with the various investigations taking place into this affair. Many hon. Members have concentrated their questioning of the Minister on this subject. They have asked the Government for a firm declaration that the full report of the Laing Committee will be presented to Parliament before the House is dissolved for the General Election or for assurances that it will be possible, if the Public Accounts Committee is not ready with its full report, to present a preliminary, partial or intermediate report before the House is dissolved.
The essential point involved in this business concerns an opportunity for the House to debate the outcome of the investigations into the Ferranti case while it is still in existence as a House of Commons. It is possible—and this is why I began my remarks the way I did—that unless we have an assurance, the Government may take the House into Recess for Easter and then, after the Easter Recess, when the House returns hon. Members may be presented with the dissolution of Parliament, the Prime Minister having advised Her Majesty.
It would then be quite impossible for the House of Commons, so soon after the Easter Recess, to insist on receiving either a complete or an intermediate report on the Ferranti affair. It would also be quite impossible for the House of Commons to debate the affair without having either of these reports. On every occasion we have put the matter to the Minister of Aviation we have had an evasive and negative reply. We have never once had the slightest assurance—although he has been pressed specifically on this point again and again—either that a report would be received before the General Election or that a debate based upon a report would take place before the General Election.
This matter is being discussed in many parts of the country. Without my having mentioned the Ferranti case at all, my view has been sought at various meetings by members of the audience. I have been in no position to give any point of view, because we have agreed that these inquiries and investigations ought to take place first. It is quite clear that in the period leading up to the General Election that question will be put to me and to many other hon. Members. The House should be in possession of the answer, in the interests of everyone concerned and, not least, in the interests of good government, which must be seen to be good government.
Many matters are involved that might lead to long-term proposals about the relations between the supply Departments of the Government and the big combines and industry generally. This is a test case of first-class importance, and we cannot pronounce upon it until we have seen some of the reports. We must have a debate before the General Election, so I urge the Leader of the House to take this opportunity to give us the assurance we seek.
Another cause of my speaking now is the announcement made today by the Minister of Labour of the proposed inquiry into the position and rights of the trade unions. Ninety per cent. of the working population in my constituency are members of the trade union movement, and a debate such as this is very much the occasion to have in mind the interests and aspirations of our constituents. I must speak in their name and on their behalf.
This announcement has not come as a surprise to a good many people who have followed the discussions that have been going on behind the scenes on the opposite side of the House. For a long time agitation has been directed against the position and status of the trade union movement. Although it is not expressed by the Minister of Labour, and I do not charge him with harbouring it—there is a keen desire on the benches opposite and in certain employers' organisations to go back on the historic achievements of trade union legislation before 1914, and on other occasions——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. In case this should lead to an enlarging of the debate. I would point out that we are now debating an Amendment to substitute one date for another, and no more. The purpose of the Amendment is to substitute 31st March for 7th April.

Mr. Mendelson: Most certainly, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and in supporting this Amendment. I would say that all the ambiguity in today's announcement must be cleared up forthwith if we are to agree to any Adjournment, either a limited one or a longer one. Unless the right hon. Gentleman gives us the assurance I seek, the earliest opportunity for such a debate will be 31st March.
I repeat that there are a number of hon. Members opposite, and there are those in certain employers' organisations, though not all, who want to go back on the historic achievements for which the trade unions have fought for many years. Great pressure has been put on the Minister of Labour and on the Cabinet to set up a Royal Commission, here and now, in order to change trade union law. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) who is, I understand, deputy chairman of an important Conservative back-bench committee dealing with trade union and social affairs, asked the Minister of Labour whether the Government would be prepared to proceed with this suggested inquiry into the position and rights of trade unions even if the Trades Union Congress and the trade union movement refused to co-operate in such an inquiry. Instead of a categorical negative reply, we had an evasive answer from the Minister of Labour.
All the right hon. Gentleman said was that he hoped that there would be agreement. That is useless. After such an unusual announcement we need a categorical assurance at an early stage that this inquiry is only intended by the Government if it receives the full cooperation of all the bodies particularly involved. If he cannot give that assurance then trade unionists will have grave doubts about what the Government are planning. I do not charge the Minister of Labour with the intention to go ahead without agreement, but there are many people who want to put the clock back and put the trade unions once again into a strait jacket.
These announcements are normally made after the terms of reference have been agreed, and after all the necessary consultation has taken place. If, in the opinion of the Minister, an hon. Member puts down a Question too soon, the Minister is most punctilious in pointing out that he is not in a position to make any announcement about an inquiry as he is still consulting the organisations concerned. In contrast with that procedure, the right hon. Gentleman has not told the House this afternoon that he has had any consultations with any body concerned—he just rushes in with this announcement. Obviously, his action has been taken in response to work done behind the scenes, and in order to cash in on whatever anti-trade union votes there may be here and there in the constituencies.
We must demand from the Leader of the House a categorical assurance on behalf of the Government that the evasive reply of the Minister of Labour does not represent the position of the Government, and that they will not proceed with this matter unless, after the fullest consultation, they receive the co-operation and agreement of all the bodies most directly concerned, particularly the trade union movement.

6.9 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): There are two points to be dealt with, and at this stage I am probably only in order in dealing with the first one. Half of the hon. Members opposite want to come back on 31st March and the other half do not want to come back at all. The Motion I have moved is in the usual form for

the Easter Adjournment. It provides 11 clear days, which has been the precedent every year since the war, except on one occasion in 1952 when only 10 days were allowed.
The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was kind enough to pay me some compliments, for which I thank him most sincerely. The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) also said some nice things about me. He is, of course, a man of strong likes and dislikes, and any pleasure that his remarks about me gave to me was taken away by what he said about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The hon. Member is a man who thinks carefully about these things and I believe that one day he will regret the terms in which he referred to my right hon. Friend.
Anyway, both were kind to me in their references to the way in which I lead the House. I believe that it is my duty as Leader of the House, having regard to the welfare of all hon. Members, to say that we should have a longer period over Easter than the Easter weekend and the Bank Holiday. I do not think that anyone here seriously disputes that proposition, and that is the only part of the argument that I wish to deal with at present. I agree that there are important problems to be dealt with, like those raised by the hon. and learned Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) and the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson)
All the hon. Members who have spoken mentioned important topics. The hon. Member for Penistone mentioned, in particular, the statement made earlier today by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. I do not see how anyone who reads that statement can fail to see that there have been important consultations about this matter. I have hon. Members to study it and come to their own conclusions.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that there has been agreement between the people concerned to set up an inquiry?

Mr. Lloyd: No, I did not say that at all. I said that it was clear from my right hon. Fiend's statement that there have been informal discussions about the whole matter.

Mr. J. Griffiths: What does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean by "informal"? In a matter of this kind, before an announcement is made by the Government, there are surely formal, and not informal, inquiries and discussions about the terms of the statement.

Mr. Lloyd: I have a high regard for the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that he has read the statement. Not by the slightest stretch of the imagination, or the furthest flight of party bitterness and recrimination, could this be regarded as an attack on the trade union movement. I agree that these are matters for discussion. I shall do my best, after the brief Recess to recruit our energies, to fit in as many of these topics as possible within the framework of the Parliamentary programme. I ask the House, in its own interest, and in the interest of individual Members, to accept the proposition that 11 days are better than four days for the Easter Recess.

Mr. S. Silverman: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman clarify what he said about the statement by the Minister of Labour? He was at great pains to say that if we read that statement carefully we would recognise that there had been conversations with the T.U.C. and with the employers. Is the inference, therefore, that the statement has been made after those conversations and in the full knowledge that neither body agreed with what the Government propose to do?

Mr. Lloyd: I will try to clear up what the hon. Member has put to me. The whole point of my right hon. Friend's statement was that formal consultations ought not to take place before the election, but it was perfectly clear from the end of the first paragraph of his statement that informal discussions have been taking place for some time about the questions raised, for example by the case of Rookes v. Barnard and its repercussions. I have no more to add.

Mr. Gordon Walker: What informal discussions can there have been? Does this mean discussions between the General Council of the T.U.C., the Minister and employers? Do these discussions mean that people met over a

drink, or something of that kind? What does the expression "informal" mean? Were there, in fact, discussions, or were there not? We need to know this.

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman may question me and say that he needs to know, but I will not add, on this Amendment, more than I have already said. I did not bring in this subject. I was questiond on the matter and I thought that what I had to say would be of some help to the House.

Mr. J. Griffiths: This is very important. We do not want to be under any misapprehension. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman, from his experience, remember a precedent whereby, in a matter of this great importance, the Government say that they have decided to set up an inquiry and all they add is that there have been informal discussions? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not realise that it is believed in the country that there have been some hole-and-corner discussions? Does he not think that in fairness to the T.U.C. and its General Secretary he owes it to them and to the country to say with whom there have been informal discussions?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can possibly believe that. I never said that anybody agreed beforehand, but many times, when dealing with public policy, one has informal discussions. I have not the slightest doubt that the right hon. Gentleman, when he was a member of the Labour Cabinet, had informal discussions. If everything came out without informal discussions things would be very much more complex.

Mr. Mendelson: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether agreement had been reached on the announcement that was to be made today? Flow does he explain the unusual course taken by the Government when, normally, Governments wait until there is an agreement about an announcement before the announcement is made? The right hon. and learned Gentleman has completely failed to explain this, which is the gravamen of the whole argument.

Mr. Lloyd: I entirely disagree with the hon. Member and I ask him to study the statement.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards: In supporting the Amendment I can only imagine that the remarks which we have just heard from the Leader of the House confirm our suspicions and the need to support the Amendment. The House is dissatisfied with the statement which was made by the Minister of Labour. I was appalled when I listened to it. It seemed to me to be a piece of cold, deliberate, calculated electioneering. It seemed to me that hon. Members opposite, who for years have been clamouring for action to curb the British trade union movement, were at long last receiving some support and being appeased by the Government.
We are bound to accept this view, because there seemed to be no reason whatsoever for a statement of this importance to be made so near to a General Election. Why is it necessary for the Minister of Labour to make a statement of this magnitude without any terms of reference and without any suggestion of the scope of the inquiry? Why was it necessary to make it just now? It may well be that we shall be in the throes of a General Election in the next months or so. Surely this was the very last occasion on which a statement of this character should have been made. The statement was made to rally those frightened people in our community who are scared of organised labour, and to lodge in their minds new suspicions about the danger of trade unionism and thereby rally them to the support of the Conservative Party.
The Minister of Labour did not inform the House what the inquiries are to be. We do not know whether they are to be into the finances of the trade unions, into the law as it affects the trade unions or into the structure of the trade unions. No information whatever was given. We were told just a few months before a General Election that the Government had decided to set up an inquiry into the trade union movement —not an inquiry into the trade union movement and monopoly operations in industry.
There are many things that the people would like to inquire into. I would like to know, for example, whether it is not an abuse of our democratic practices when the steel industry can declare that

it proposes to spend £1 million trying to influence a General Election—£1 million on lying propaganda to keep this Government of vested interest in power.
Is it not time that we had an inquiry into such ramifications which are undermining. our democratic practices and interfering with the election system, where industries were able in the 1959 General Election to spend £1,400,000, where private monopolies were able to spend campaigning against Labour more money than the sum total that all candidates standing for election were legally entitled to spend during their campaign? If there are to be inquiries, it is time that we had inquiries into the operations of private industry interfering with our democratic practices.
I am appalled that so near to a General Election a Minister of the Crown, the Minister responsible for labour relations, should lodge in the minds of millions of trade unionists the suspicion that the Government intend to curb their right to defend themselves; because this is the suspicion which many millions of trade unionists will have in their minds and will be discussing tomorrow in the factories.
Our trade union movement is the most responsible trade union movement in the world. Last year, only half an hour per worker was lost by industrial disputes. Ours was the best record in the Western world. Japan lost seven times more hours from industrial disputes than we did. America lost eleven times more. One hundred times more hours are lost in industry through industrial accidents and sickness than are lost through industrial disputes. Yet every time vile pick up the Order Paper we read a Motion, tabled by hon. Members opposite, which is calculated to denigrate and undermine the whole functioning of our trade union movement.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would it be helpful to the hon. Member to read the Motion to which he is speaking, or rather, the Amendment thereto to which he is speaking?

Mr. Edwards: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I was merely suggesting that the House should meet on 31st March so that we can discuss the statement which was made today by the Minister of Labour
I have made my point to try to justify my contention that a statement of this magnitude, involving about 10 million organised industrial workers and their wives, should be discussed at the earliest possible moment, not after the General Election, but before, so that the people will know clearly what are the intentions of the Government.
For these basic reasons, which, I think, are important to our British democracy, I hope that my hon. Friends will support the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Main Question again proposed.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I would like to speak to the main Question, which, I think, will afford the House a somewhat wider opportunity to range than when discussing the restricted Amendment, which was designed merely to change one date to another. At the end I shall seek your leave, Mr. Speaker—I respectfully ask you not to rule at this stage—to move another Amendment the effect of which would be that we should adjourn until the dissolution of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I save the hon. Gentleman's time? I considered his agreeably ingenious Amendment, but I came to the conclusion that, if the first one were defeated, it would necessarily fall, in the sense that we have retained Tuesday, 7th April, in the original Motion. I confess that I would not think it right, in these circumstances, to accept a second Amendment.

Mr. Thorpe: If you please, Mr. Speaker.
Then may I address myself to the main Question and say that I hope that hon. Members will vote against it, on the basis that no date would be convenient to come back, because the time has been reached when the House should adjourn for good? My reason for saying that is that there comes a time in the life of every Government of any party when they have reached the point of no return. If one thing has become very plain from talking to hon. Members opposite, it is that the Government and their members have got an incurable

death wish. If one really wants to get a reaction from the Government, one says to one of their members, "I think that you will get back at the next election". The automatic response is, "You do not really think so, do you? You hearten me. You are the first person I have heard say that for months".
The first point is that there is a genuine death wish on the part of the Government who have, after all, been in power for nearly 14 years. Their death wish and the whole election fever which has overtaken the party opposite have made it quite impossible to have any intelligent discussion and debate upon the great issues of the day. This is another reason why I oppose the Motion.
When the Prime Minister took office one of the first speeches he made was to the effect that he hoped that defence would be taken out of party politics or would be above party politics. Within a few weeks the Prime Minister had discovered that the hydrogen bomb and the fear which that bomb could strike one way or the other into the hearts of the people of this country was an extremely good election weapon. The Prime Minister has been going round hugging the nuclear bomb to his breast as if it was it was his best election hope. He has now become a unilateralist. The Prime Minister is a unilateralist—a unilateral nuclear bomber. That is the only logical inference to draw from a Prime Minister who sets such very high store upon Britain's possession of the bomb.
So that this argument can be underlined, we have had at this pre-election stage a White Paper in which the Government justify the retention of this independent deterrent, so-called, in 19 lines in three paragraphs. What they are really saying—I indicate this to show that in this election crisis logic has gone out through the back door—is that they foresee a situation in which our American allies will leave Europe and, therefore, there will be no European Power capable of inflicting nuclear retaliation. Therefore, in order, in this state of election fever, to make this argument stand up, what they have to maintain is that our American allies will tear up all their obligations under N.A.T.O. and retreat from the Continent of Europe.
On the other hand, this is the ally from whom we are receiving the delivery systems which make our independent deterrent possible. So reliable is this ally, according to the other side of the argument, that we can call the deterrent independent because we know that we will have an inexhaustible supply of these weapons from our reliable American allies. So, even on the basis of their own logic, it is quite impossible to have an intelligent debate on nuclear weapons.
A noble Lord made a slip in another place. I am charitable and call it a slip. Perhaps the noble Lord meant it.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am assured that the First Lord of the Admiralty read it from his brief perfectly solemnly. It was all there. It was not a slip.

Mr. Thorpe: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I accept that it is more likely that the First Lord would have read from a carefully prepared brief than that he should have extemporised on his own behalf. But what Freudian insight it gave into the argument that in no circumstances could Britain be without her independent nuclear deterrent. We now see the chink in the argument and we have some indication of what policy would be bound to follow after the election. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that, in 18 months, there will be no political party in this country seriously advocating the retention of the independent nuclear deterrent—none at all. This sort of thing is one of the great tragedies of the election fever period.
The Government are split. The Tory Party is supposed to be the great modernising party. This is why it elected the present Prime Minister, to be the spearhead of modernisation. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is the most modern leader that the Conservative Party could find. But, when asked to tidy up resale price maintenance as part of the modernisation of Britain, the Government party are seen to be hopelessly split. Goodness knows what would have happened if the Government had seriously tackled monopolies. There would have been over 500 Amendments on the Notice Paper and the unfortunate Secretary of State for Industry and Trade would have been under even greater attack. One

cannot conduct a serious discussion on this aspect of policy, because the Government are hopelessly split.
There is more to it than that. Take unemployment. This Government, it is true, have had certain achievements. They have achieved a higher rate of unemployment than any other Government in the preceding 25 years. [AN. HON. MEMBER: "It is not true."] I rely on the comparative figures put out by the United Nations, showing the unemployment in this country from before the war up to the present. All we have had are two public works programmes in the North-East and Scotland. In my constituency, there is nearly 6 per cent. unemployment. We are very pleased to have the Minister visit us on Monday, but this is all we have had—a Ministerial visit after 14 years. The problem will not be solved until we have a Government with determination, not a death wish.
We need a Government with confidence and authority to negotiate in regard to Europe. The present Government were belatedly converted to the idea of going into Europe. Unfortunately, it was too late. Now, the initiative must be taken, not only on the economic front but politically, also—I say this without any equivocation—and only a Government with authority can take it.
There is the need to rethink our whole policy for agriculture. It is no good having an election Price Review and trying to recoup the errors of past years, thinking that that in itself will solve the problems of agriculture.
All these artificial arguments are going on at present. There is the artificial argument about defence, there is the split in the Government ranks at any attempt to modernise Britain, there is the failure to tackle unemployment in any effective and drastic way, there is the fact that we have a Prime Minister who, though a very nice man, in economics gives the impression of being an affable amateur. There is also the fact that the party opposite has been in power for nearly 14 years and that the time has come for it to go. Already, 25 per cent. of the ranks opposite are knights, baronets or dames, which is some indication of the length of time that the Tories have been in power.
I suggest, therefore, that the Motion should be opposed on the basis that we should not vote for a return of Parliament in its present form, but that we should adjourn so that the electorate may have the right to give its verdict on the record of the Government and serve them with notice to quit.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: I wish to raise another point which indicates that the Government, on this occasion, have taken a somewhat unusual course. If the Leader of the House will look up the records, he will find that, for a long time back—at least as far back as I can remember—the Motion for the Adjournment for the Recess has always been taken in the week on which the House did in fact adjourn.
The Motion for the Adjournment last Christmas was taken on 17th December and the House adjourned on 20th December for the Christmas Recess. The Motion for the Adjournment for the Summer Recess was taken on Tuesday, 30th July, and the House rose on Thursday, 2nd August. The Motion for the Adjournment for last Whitsun Recess was taken on Tuesday, 28th May, and the House rose for the Recess on 31st May.
I will not go any further back. I think that I have quoted enough precedent to show that it is the almost invariable practice to take the Motion for the Adjournment on the Tuesday of the week in which the House rises.
This prompts me to ask the question: why have the Government, on this occasion, put down the Motion for discussion during the week before the week when the House is due to rise and not, as in accordance with precedent they should have done, next Tuesday? I know that the Government are in some difficulty with their own supporters about the Resale Prices Bill, which is to be taken in Committee on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week. It looks suspiciously as though, on account of that Bill, the Government, or the Leader of the House, did not follow the usual precedent and put down this Motion for debate next Tuesday.
I should be glad if the Leader of the House would explain why, for the first

time that I can remember, he has departed from what looks like an established precedent in the matter.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: To take up the point just made by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), I wonder whether, in any of the precedents he found, there is a precedent for the Easter Recess. In fact, we are proposing to rise on a Thursday, whereas in the other cases, of course, we rose on a Friday. I thought that it would be for the convenience of the House in this case that we should have this matter out of the way today.

Mr. Lipton: Perhaps I should have quoted the precedent for the last Easter Adjournment. The Motion was moved on Tuesday, 9th April and the House rose for the Recess on Thursday, 11th April.

Mr. Lloyd: I think that the Government's intentions were known. I did not know that there was any objection to this proposal. In these matters, as is known, I am the servant of the House, and I thought that it would be convenient to get this business out of the way this week.

Mr. S. Silverman: Convenient to whom?

Mr. Lloyd: Convenient to all hon. Members on both sides.
I have listened carefully to all the speeches which have been made, the effect of which has been that this Parliament should sit no more. There has been a good deal of personal and political abuse from the benches opposite. Words have not been minced. But I propose to reply with studied moderation. It seems to me that the Opposition want to curtail the deliberations of this Parliament because they have collectively, throughout. cut such a poor figure and shown themselves to be so irresponsible.
Their jumpiness today and their extraordinary reaction to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour this afternoon—these are the sorts of reasons why they want to get rid of this Parliament. They have gone through a process over the months of painstakingly papering over the cracks in their own party on questions of neutralism, nuclear defence, nationalisation, and all the rest.


and they are just beginning to wonder whether this precarious facade of unity will last much longer.
Even in approaching simple matters like this, hon. Members opposite are completely split. Half of them say that we should come back on 31st March and the other half say that we should not come back at all. There has been a shortening in their tempers and anxiety about whether they can still preserve what is, I think, a precarious façade. They have attempted to distort what was said by the First Lord of the Admiralty. He said in the House of Lords very much what was said this House by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence at column 460 of the OFFICIAL REPORT on 26th February. I will not go into the details of the two statements, but if anyone compares what my two right hon. Friends have said he will see that it was the same thing.
If it is not just a question of hon. Members opposite being worried about their own façade, can it be that they have been shaken by last month's export and production figures? They heard with glee the bad balance of payments figures. They thought that this was a great chance to say how badly things have been managed in order to gain some political advantage. This month we have the biggest export figures and the highest production figures ever.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that month by month we must have the biggest export figures ever unless we are to get into very grave difficulties? This is not something to boast of. Each month the figures must go up if we are to sustain economic growth. It is not something to boast of in itself.

Mr. Lloyd: I agree that it is necessary for our figures to go up month by month. That is exactly what will not happen if the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends get into power. I utterly repudiate the allegation——

Mr. S. Silverman: Mr. S. Silverman rose——

Mr. Lloyd: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman——

Mr. Silverman: I shall not take long. This is relevant to the point that the right hon. and learned Member is making. Is he inviting the House to say

that, if in a single month we spend £68 million more than we earn, that is a sign of bounding prosperity?

Mr. Lloyd: I was talking about the export figures, as the hon. Member knows quite well. He knows equally well that it was the suggested falling off in exports which the Opposition thought would give them a good political point.
I utterly repudiate the allegation of lack of authority. It is the Opposition, such of their members as are here—and I have to look at the Opposition a great deal—who are tired, worn and jumpy. We were elected with an increased majority in October, 1959, for five years, and we intend to rule with that authority.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) said something about majorities. I suppose that he wanted to be put out of his misery. I understand his personal anxiety. In 1951, he had a majority of 9,727. In 1959, he had a majority of 3,544. At that rate of progress, he will be out next time.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to tell the House by how much the size of my electorate has dropped, otherwise he cannot validly make the point that he has made? He is a very fair man. His fairness has been praised today. No doubt, he has informed himself of the fall in the size of my total electorate.

Mr. Lloyd: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety. He has obviously made these minute calculations. If I have misrepresented the situation or prophesied too easy a doom for him, I apologise; I am very sorry. But he is on the way down, and I like him very much—that is a matter for great regret. We shall choose our time having regard to the convenience of the electors and the national interest, and when we go to the country we shall win.

6.44 p.m.

Mr. John McKay: I hope that I will be in order in what I am about to say, but I am not quite sure.
We have heard a very strong speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) against the Government's attitude and their


intention to inquire into the trade union movement. Their intention is to prepare a case and to get it over in time to help them at the General Election. The implication is that there is some dangerous element in the trade union movement which must, of necessity, draw our attention to that organisation. Only history can prove whether there is a very dangerous element in the trade union movement. It is wise from the Tories' point of view to bring this matter to the attention of the public in such a way that it will carry some weight in the trade union movement.
On Monday, I asked, in a Question, by how much the wages of the workers had improved between 1938 and 1962. I received a reasonable reply. I wanted to have it on record as a financial indication of how the wages of the workers had progressed. To that extent, it would prove how dangerous the trade union movement had become in 26 years and how much the purchasing power of the workers had improved after a great war and after tremendous struggle in times of shortage of material. Great efforts were made in this period, not only by trade unionists but by everybody.
It was admitted that in 1938 the average wage was 69s.——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I regret having to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but would he be so kind as to relate his observations to the Question before the House?

Mr. McKay: I thought that, since other speakers had been allowed to range widely, I should have an opportunity to debate this matter. I could not see any other way to deal with it than by comparing the state of the trade union movement in 1938 with its state in 1962. I will not develop the point too much. I will give the figures as quickly as I can in order to give a bird's eye view of the situation.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: On a point of order. Could the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) be deceived by the fact that the clocks have stopped?

Mr. Speaker: No, I do not think so. I think that he was making a speech. The rest of the House will have noted the fact.

Mr. McKay: I often get into this trouble, Sir. It is a familiar occurrence when I speak. Somehow, I have difficulty in keeping on a straight line.
The reply to my Question indicated that the cost of living index rose from 100 to 310. When comparing the average wages of workers, I find that the single man had increased his purchasing power by 28 per cent. and the married man by about 30 per cent. in 26 years when the cost of living had risen by a figure of 210.
Whatever the Tory Party may attempt to do in creating a problem and placing it before the country, there is something in the trade union movement, under its special constitution and freedom, which must be investigated to see what we can do to keep it more steady. To me, this is just another instance of the introduction of politics regardless of its aftereffects.
The country's history shows that the trade union movement has not been extravagant in its demands. That it has not been successful in obtaining improved purchasing power of more than, say, 30 per cent. over a period of 26 years is an indication, not of extravagant demands, but of moderation, intelligence and a sense of responsibility by the great trade union movement, which should be supported wholeheartedly.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, at its rising on Thursday next, do adjourn till Tuesday 7th April.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (NO. 2) BILL

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Orders of the Day — LOCAL UNEMPLOYMENT

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: We turn now to a discussion of local unemployment. A week ago the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) wondered why we should discuss local unemployment and not local employment. I hope that during the discussion we may refer to local employment also, but on occasions such as this we discuss grievances that the House may have with the Executive and rather than discuss employment we would wish to turn our attention to the problems of unemployment.
It is interesting that as we discuss local unemployment, we should have had put before us today the South-East Study, which deals with quite the opposite problem of over-employment, congestion and the social problems arising in the South-East from the attraction of that part of the country to industry, year in and year out, and by the migration of population from the North, from Scotland and from Wales to the South-East.
Whilst no one denies the need to examine and tackle with vigour the great social problems of the South-East, equally no one can deny that the solving, even the tackling, of this problem with vigour in the South-East makes it immeasurably more difficult to tackle successfully the problem of employment in the North, in Scotland and in Wales.
Recently, we have had quite considerable industrial expansion. According to the F.B.I. Industrial Trend Inquiry, 19 per cent. of firms gave the shortage of skilled labour as the most important factor which was likely to limit their output in the next four months. Yet we have unemployment in the North-

Western region amounting to 74,306, or 2·56 per cent.; in the northern region, 52,916, or 4·1 per cent.; in Scotland, 96,980, or 4·5 per cent.; and in Wales. 28,531, or 2·9 per cent. In each of those regions we have pockets of heavy unemployment.
About a fortnight ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the increase in the Bank Rate. The purpose of the adjustment in the rate was to hold back a little the rate of expansion; we were expanding too rapidly and the expansion had to be held in check a little. The unemployment figures which I have quoted show that the expansion has not yet reached some of the worst hit parts of the country.
If, this time, we have the experience that we have had on all previous occasions when the brake has been applied, those will be the areas which suffer most from the application of the restraint. In those areas, in which the school-leavers find it most difficult to get into employment, particularly with training for skill, the school-leavers will increasingly be denied the opportunity of getting into employment.
Clearly, what is wrong is a failure on the part of the Government to pursue a distribution of industry policy in the interests of the nation. This is what gives rise to the problem which we are discussing today. It is equally the reason for the problem which is sought to be tackled in the South-East Study. When one thinks of the reports that emerged from independent Committees and Royal Commissions before the war, and even during the war, calling attention to the problem, it is a tragedy that even now we should be met with the two opposite problems in the acute forms in which they exist in two different parts of the country.
It is not that the Government have not had power to tackle the problem. The power to regulate the distribution of industry throughout the country was given in the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945 For 12 years, however, we have had ineffective Ministers unwilling to administer the powers that were given in 1945 and Ministers who now have lost all the will to govern. I remember the late Hugh Dalton moving the Second Reading of the Distribution of Industry Bill in 1945, on 21st March of that year,


19 years ago this week. He described it as a Measure to promote a healthy and well-balanced industrial life in all parts of the country. He said that it was needed to make a beginning with the carrying-out of the principles of the Barlow Report on the Distribution of the Industrial Population.
Subsequent to the passing of the Act, when Hugh Dalton was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I remember his speech at a Labour Party conference, when he said that the money that he found to give effect to the distribution of industry policy he found with a song in his heart. I remember how he was maligned by Tory propagandists for his speech on that occasion.
I also remember what the Tories said in the debate in the House of Commons on 21st March, 1945. They did not like this interference with the right of private industry to establish itself wherever it wished anywhere in this country, and it has been all too obvious, over the past 12 years, that the powers that the Government have to say "No" to the industrialists in the congested South-East are powers which are not exercised because they dare not say "No"—I was going to say to their friends, but that would be wrong—to their political paymasters who are in big business.
We shall be told once again no doubt, at the end of this debate, what has been done for the development districts—the free depreciation, the standard grants for building and machinery—and those of us concerned about the Scottish position will be told about the B.M.C. at Bathgate and Rootes at Linwood. The Minister of State will, no doubt, remind us of the pulp mill being built at Fort William. We may also be told about the £50 million in loans being made available to industry in Scotland under the Local Employment Act, 1960.
Of course, we might get just a little of the picture that the Prime Minister gave the other day when he addressed a Press conference to launch the Enterprise Scotland Exhibition. What right he had to do this, I shall never know. I happen to be one of the group of Members for Scottish constituencies who has had an interest in the Enterprise

Scotland Exhibition for a very long time. A good many of us have been members of the general committee for several exhibitions past. We would not have approved of the Scottish Council, or the committee appointed to organise this exhibition with our support, providing a platform for the Prime Minister to make an electioneering speech on behalf of the Tory Party.
On that occasion, on Tuesday of this week, the right hon. Gentleman claimed credit for everything that has happened in Scotland since the end of the war—the introduction of office machinery. By whom? By a Labour Government. The introduction of the electronics industry. Under which Government?—a Labour Government. Most of the things that he mentioned in his speech as the great things done by a Tory Government all happened in the years when the Prime Minister was not a Member of Parliament at all, between 1945 and 1950. No doubt we shall get something of this picture that he then presented when he made this speech to the Press two days ago.
We shall be told that things will improve in the future. That will be tedious repetition. We have been told this on every occasion in the last 12 years when we have discussed employment in industry in Scotland. Not one debate has passed on this subject without Ministers telling us that the dark clouds were just moving away, that prosperity was round the corner; and no doubt the Minister of State will tell us once again that his right hon. Friend will continue to pursue a tough I.D.C. policy in London, the South-East and the Midlands. If he does, I can tell him that nobody will believe him.
Look at the figures. Take unemployment on the latest figures available to us. In London and the South-East: unemployed, 72,608 persons or 1·3 per cent. of the insured population; unfilled vacancies in the same region, 77,309. In the Midlands, unemployed, 42,024 or 1·2 per cent; unfilled vacancies, 44,120. The House will note that the unfilled vacancies in both those regions substantially exceed the number unemployed. In Scotland, the number of unemployed total 96,908, or 4·5 per cent. of the insured population; unfilled vacancies, 11,475. If all the unfilled vacancies in


Scotland were filled by unemployed people there would still be over 85,000 unemployed.
We come to the issue of the industrial development certificates for factory building. According to the digest of Statistics published by the Board of Trade, in its latest issue, the amount of factory building under construction is as follows: London and South-East, 11,809,000 sq. ft., and in the Midlands 7,790,000 sq. ft., over 25 per cent, of all the factory building in Great Britain, notwithstanding that the unfilled vacancies in those areas already exceed the number of unemployed. In Scotland, factory building under construction is 5,650,000 sq. ft., or 7·4 per cent. of the total. We have over 21 per cent. of the unemployed and only 7·4 per cent. of the factories under construction. What a wonderful Government!
The right hon. Gentleman may tell us that advance factories are being built. Where are they being built? I am not asking him to tell me the towns and villages in Scotland in which they are being built, but I want to know how many factories are being built in different parts of the United Kingdom, including the congested areas—I hope not with public money.
We have heard from the Treasury Bench on earlier occasions of the great areas of factory space advertised weekly in London as being available to rent. I was astonished when I picked up the London Evening Standard of Tuesday, 18th February, to read:
Property Chief Has No Fears About Election. One property man untroubled by the thought of what the General Election may bring is Mr. Gerald Mobbs, managing director of Slough Estates. 'Both parties are committed to industrial growth, and that means more people will be wanting new factories', he says. 'The small ones we've just built on spec have been snapped up and that's without our doing any advertising.' This leaves some 30 acres immediately available on the 600-acre estate for further building. 'Enough for the next four or five years at the rate we have been going'.
The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have been telling us for years that in this area no industrial development certificate was given for any industrial building without the closest and most careful consideration being given to the need for the factory and for industrial building in the area. How are fac-

tories built "on spec" at Slough? Why is this permitted?
Some of us get hot under the collar when we discuss these matters but we have every right to do so when we think of the drift of population, the migration of population from the North to the South, and the stories we are told about the tough policy being pursued by the Government in seeking to prevent a further concentration of industry here, when, daily, we have evidence that Ministers are misleading the House and the nation in the statements which they make.
The Secretary of State for Scotland and some of his colleagues have been making some noble declarations on the Scottish position since he became Secretary of State.

Mr. William Hamilton: Where is he?

Mr. Fraser: The right hon. Gentleman is not likely to be here, because he makes all his noble declarations to meetings of the Unionist Party in Scotland. I have before me the Press report of a meeting which he had with his own Unionist Association in Argyll a little while after he was appointed Secretary of State. He said:
We are certainly sympathetic to those who are unemployed but there is this other side to the question. After we go into the Common Market there are quite a number of firms from both America and Europe who will want to come here and start a business. They will look around Europe and the only place they will be able to find labour available will be here.
This is the Secretary of State's boast—that the only country in Europe in which those companies will be able to find unemployed labour is Scotland. This is our great asset.
The Minister of State, the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, no doubt using the same script writer, made a similar speech. Ho said:
Scotland had what the European community desperately needed—a stable country with all modern resources and a highly skilled and adaptable labour force ready to turn from old-established contracting industries into new and exciting fields. 'Nowhere else in Europe are these things to be found on such a scale,' said Lord Craigton, who was speaking at a Unionist meeting in James Gillespie's School. 'Expansion is in the air, and if we go in, then England, the United States and Europe will find, better in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe, all the conditions necessary


for expansion. Then we shall see the solid, unspectacular groundwork of the last decade really start to pay off.
The roads, the bridges, the overspill movement, the new towns, the industrial estates, the careful forward-planning of local authorities, both great and small, all will come into their own'.
The only country in Europe with a large pool of unused labour. What a damning indictment of this Tory Government!
We did not get into the Common Market, and the right hon. Gentlemen concerned have no other cure for the economic ills of Scotland. In any case, what was this solid unspectacular groundwork of the past decade referred to by the Minister of State? The answer to that question was given by the Minister of Labour at Question Time on Monday. Between 1951 and 1963 the number of men and boys in employment in Scotland showed a decrease of 33,000. In the same period there was an increase in the number of men and boys in employment in the rest of Great Britain of 963,000. It was almost I million increase during the same period that there was a decrease of 33,000 in the number in employment in Scotland. This is the "solid unspectacular groundwork of the past decade". This is the way in which the Tory Government have managed to undermine Scotland in the past 12 years.

Mr. George Lawson: This is a very serious statement about Scotland. I take it that my hon. Friend advised the Secretary of State for Scotland that he would deal with this matter. The Secretary of State is not here. We have here only one junior Minister representing Scotland. Did my hon. Friend advise hon. Members opposite that he would raise such matters?

Mr. Fraser: I did not tell them precisely which matters I would raise, but they were informed that I should be opening the debate, and the Scottish Office would not be unaware that I was liable to say a word or two about Scotland in the course of my remarks. But if my hon. Friend is surprised that the Secretary of State is not in his place this afternoon, I am surprised at my hon. Friend. It is my experience that when the Secretary of State knows that he will be under fire, he is never here.
The Minister of Labour also told us on Monday that for every 100 wholly unemployed boys in Scotland there were 24 vacancies. For every 100 wholly unemployed in the Midlands there were 694 vacancies. This means that there are four unemployed boys chasing every job in Scotland, whereas there are seven jobs chasing every unemployed boy in the Midlands. Let the House reflect on the figures which I gave a little while ago about the amount of factory building in the Midlands compared with the amount under construction in Scotland. Let the Minister of State ask himself whether there is any equitable use of the I.D.C. procedure in the interests of the nation.
All this leads to the tremendous loss of population to which reference was made in the Government's White Paper on Central Scotland. It also accounts for the daily trek south on the trunk road A.74. Scottish Ministers are well aware that I live near that road, but the Minister of State may not know it. I can assure him that, every day of the week in every week of the year, young men can be seen on that road hitchhiking soutth in search of employment.
This is in addition to the men and women whose transfer to employment in the South is facilitated by the Ministry of Labour, which pays their fares and removal expenses. There is an assumption sometimes that all these moves are taken care of by the Ministry of Labour, but I want the House to realise that on this trunk road southwards to England every day one sees disheartened, frustrated young people, many only in their teens, unable to find employment in their homeland, trekking south in search of a job in another part of Britain.
The fact that that sort of situation pertains in one part of Britain while we have the situation described in the South-East Study brings home very forcibly the incompetence of the kind of Government we have at present.

Miss Margaret Herbison: My hon. Friend has spoken about young men who hitch-hike. I see that, on the benches opposite, there is only one Scottish Member who may want to take part in this debate, but that two hon. Members from Ulster are present. An added misfortune for the unemployed


of Ulster is that they cannot hitch-hike to here. They have to find the fare. But Scotland, at least, returns a majority Labour representation while Ulster continues to send to the Imperial Parliament 12 Tory Members.

Mr. Fraser: I do not want to get involved in the political set-up of Northern Ireland. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and I have visited that part of the United Kingdom and realise full well that, when the voters go to the polls, they are not encouraged to vote on the policies of the Tory and Labour Parties, but on religious grounds. Thus we get the distortion which we have in the representation of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom Parliament.

Mr. McMaster: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss the internal politics of Northern Ireland. What we can discuss in this debate are matters of Ministerial responsibility here.

Mr. McMaster: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. An attack has been made on my fellow Unionist Members and on what happens at a General Election. May I not have your permission to say a word in our defence?

Mr. Speaker: No. The hon. Gentleman has now protested and that will have to suffice.

Mr. Fraser: The White Paper on Central Scotland is no answer to the problems I have been setting before the House. The proposition in that White Paper that has been most loudly acclaimed by the Tories in Scotland is that public investment, which was at the rate of £100 million in 1962–63, would be increased to £130 million in 1963–64 and to £140 million in 1964–65.
Tories in Scotland, including hon. Members, make speeches saying that the Government are giving £40 million more for public investment, which is as near to being a lie as is possible. What the White Paper says is that public investment on all the public services—roads, houses and schools, etc—which was held back to £100 million in 1962–63 will be permitted to rise to £130 million this year and to £140 million next year. Most of

this public investment is incurred by the local authorities, without one penny of extra money being made available from Government funds by increased grants to them.
The first year is almost up. The financial year finishes at the end of March. What has happened? The Government have appointed a committee in each of the growth areas to see how this extra money is to be spent. Most of the extra money is already spent, however, but nobody has been made aware or sees any evidence in Scotland of its having given rise to any great upthrust of economic activity. All that happened was that the Government, which had put a very heavy squeeze on the amount of public investment to be undertaken by the local authorities, lifted their foot a little off the brake.
The Government pretended, in the White Paper, that they would stimulate investment on what they are pleased to call the "infrastructure" and which we used to call the basic services, as in the Distribution of industry Act, 1945. The Government, however, now talk about stimulating expenditure on the infrastructure.
The Minister of State will not be able to tell us of any growth area in Scotland in which the Government have stimulated any of the local authorities concerned into incurring more expenditure on the infrastructure, because they have not done so. It may be that the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us that, here and there, the Government have permitted the local authorities to do a little more than they did in previous years but he will find it difficult to give examples of permitting local authorities to do as much as they themselves want to do.
Part of North Lanarkshire lies in one of the growth areas. It has a big backlog of school building to be overtaken. Last week the Secretary of State told us that in the coming year—the second year of increase in expenditure on public investment—he has decided to allow the local education authority to do two-thirds of the work it wants to carry out. That is what the Government call "stimulation".
No one in Scotland knows of any advantage that there is in being in a growth area. The Minister of State may


think that he knows but surely if anyone should know it is the local authority officials in these growth areas. The Burgh of Motherwell and Wishaw was at one time two separate towns. Motherwell and Wishaw were joined about 30 years ago. Now Motherwell is in a growth area and Wishaw is outside it.
I have the honour to be chairman of the Lanarkshire Development Council. I have had a meeting with the officials of the local authorities in Lanarkshire to inform myself of the advice they received from Lord Craigton and what they were to do on the working party that has been set up. I asked an official of the Burgh of Motherwell and Wishaw what was the advantage to Motherwell of being in a growth area and the disadvantage to Wishaw of being outside it. I wanted to know what works would be permitted in Motherwell which would not be permitted in Wishaw. I wanted to know what public investment would be stimulated in Motherwell and not stimulated in Wishaw.
That senior official of the Motherwell and Wishaw Burgh Council had not a clue. He said that he had asked exactly the same questions at the Scottish Office but could not get the answers for the people there did not know either. Does not this sort of situation demonstrate what a farce the Government's activities amount to? It is just window-dressing. It was never intended to be taken seriously by any serious student of the social and economic problems of Scotland.
There is only one thing in the White Paper of which I approve. For many years hon. Members of this side of the House have been lambasted by Tories and by the Tory Press in Scotland for telling the truth about Scotland. We have been accused of making over-gloomy prophecies. We have been told that it is a bad thing to bring to light our loss of population by migration. But now the White Paper admits that in the first 10 years of Tory rule the loss of population from Scotland by migration exceeded 280,000. That figure has now risen to more than 300,000.
The White Paper says, in paragraph 6:

The net loss of younger people cannot continue at the present level without serious damage to the prospects of long-term economic recovery.
That supports what we have been saying in our debates over the years about the serious effect on the Scottish economy of this constant drain of young people. The White Paper admits that after 12 wasted years the goal is economic recovery, but prefaces that with the phrase "long term". We have suffered so much as a result of 12 years of Tory administration that we certainly are in need of economic recovery, but no one can see any possibility of that happening in the short term. The goal is long-term economic recovery. There is not a word in the White Paper about how the problem of our loss of young people is to be dealt with. There is not one proposal to arrest this constant loss of our young people.
The Barlow Commission, which reported more than 20 years ago, and to which I have already referred, said that to avoid over-congestion in London and the Midlands a national authority was needed to control the location of industry. That Report specifically mentioned the declining industries of Scotland and the North-East which the Government discovered only when writing their recent White Papers. That really is a dreadful commentary on the incompetence of the present Administration.
I realise that because of the time I must draw my remarks to a close. We are always being asked what we would do to deal with the situation in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman knows about our plan for a national authority. He knows about our plan for regional authorities, and he is aware of our determination to move industries from the congested areas into other areas, although I accept that it will be possible for someone to say that the Labour Party has not thought those ideas out for itself as these proposals were made by the Barlow Commission which was appointed in 1937, and reported in 1940.
The needs of Scotland are similar to those of the North-East. There are really two nations in this land. There is the nation north of the line from the Mersey to the Humber, and the nation south of that. The nation in the north needs more science-based industries. Secondly, we


need industries based on the petrochemical works at Grangemouth. It is remarkable how little is said about the failure of private enterprise to make use of the products of the petro-chemical industry.
Half its products come south, to England, and the other half go overseas. When I was in Israel, some years ago, I saw some of the products of Grangemouth being converted into plastics to be exported. Where?—to England. Why cannot we in Scotland make use of the products from Grangemouth? Why did not the Toothill Committee mention this matter? The answer is that it could not do so without criticising industrialists in Central Scotland.
Thirdly, we want industries based on the products of the strip mills at Ravens-craig and Gartcosh. I could elaborate that, but I shall not do so. Fourthly, we want lower interest rates, or higher subsidies for local authority programmes for investment in the growth areas. Fifthly, we want the withdrawal of the selective coal price increases imposed in 1961–62.
Sixthly, we want contracts to be placed in Scotland for the supply of manufactures for the public services. Seventhly, we want a fairer share of office employment under the control of the Government and statutory bodies. In that connection, the Scottish Development Department has advised Hamilton Town Council not to construct any houses in the Beckford Street area, so as to leave space for the extension of office employment in the town. At some sacrifice to the housing programme, the town council agreed to that proposal, and I ask the Joint Under-Secretary of State to communicate to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State our request that he should support his Department and steer some appropriate Government Department into the town.
Recently, there have been many feature articles in the Scottish Press about the state of the Scottish economy. Many suggestions have been made for dealing with the problem. There has been widespread support for the proposition that there should be a new tax structure which will discriminate in favour of the depressed areas of the country.
I hope that the Minister will show us that he realises that the policies which have been pursued in the past are insufficient to deal with the problems with which we are faced. Something else must be tried. I am not suggesting that it is necessary for the Government to have additional powers. All I am suggesting is that Ministers should make use of the powers that they already have. It may be that I ought to know better than to ask that. After all, as was made clear in our discussions earlier this afternoon, there must soon be a General Election, and when the miserable record of twelve years of Tory Government is exposed to the electors, there is little doubt that a new management will be elected to take control of the nation's affairs.

7.40 p.m.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean: I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) about the seriousness of the situation in Scotland. On the other hand, he has done less than justice to the Government for what they have done in recent years. Further, he made no more than rather vague suggestions as to what a Labour Government might do if they came to power. His speech was largely destructive, and not entirely logical. He brushed aside the various industrial developments that have taken place in Central Scotland and which have been largely, if not entirely, the work of the present Government. But, if I understood him aright, he said that he wanted subsidiary industries for the strip mill at Ravenscraig.
That is exactly what I should have thought it was now beginning to get. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that what has been done is of no importance and then ask for more of it.

Mr. T. Fraser: I did not say that.

Sir F. Maclean: He went fairly near to saying i.
He also did less than justice to the scheme for the growth areas. I hope that my hon. Friend will refer to that. It is rather childish to say that the line between one growth area and another, or the defining line of a growth area, is arbitrary. I do not complain because Irvine, which is the centre of a growth


area, is situated in the constituency of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), because I am certain that that growth area will help to solve the unemployment in my constituency just as much as it will in his. That fact was pointed out in our debate on the White Paper. It was then made clear that growth areas are meant to expand outside their narrow boundaries, as defined on the map at the end of the White Paper.

Mr. T. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to have heard a word that I said. I said that those burghs which were within the growth areas were not aware of any advantage accruing to them from that fact. This was brought out clearly in situations where part of a burgh was in a growth area and part was outside. The officials of the burgh did not know what effect the growth area would have on that part that was inside.

Sir F. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman was inclined to play the whole thing down. My feeling is that these areas will soon realise what advantages they derive from being either within a growth area or just outside it.

Mr. John Rankin: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that, even admitting that growth areas in certain parts of Scotland help to increase the population, and solve the unemployment problem, those growth areas have been ill-balanced. There is no compensating growth area in the Highlands to prevent the Highland population from being attracted to growth areas on the other side of the Highland line.

Sir F. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman must realise that the present scheme for growth areas in Central Scotland is to be followed by another scheme for the Highlands and the Borders.

Mr. E. G. Willis: When?

Sir F. Maclean: It is not for me to announce that, but I hope that we shall hear about it at the end of the debate. When we do I shall be as gratified as hon. Members opposite will no doubt be.
I was interested in what the hon. Member said about fiscal inducements. That is something for which I have been

pressing for some time. I also read the interesting articles on the subject which have been published in the national Press. There is undoubtedly more to be done in this way. But we must recognise that the fiscal inducements offered by the Chancellor in the last Budget are already beginning to produce their effects. The hon. Member was less than generous not to mention them in his speech.

Mr. T. Fraser: I did.

Sir F. Maclean: I had to leave the Chamber for a few minutes while he was speaking and I may have missed that part of his speech, but he did not mention it while I was here.

Mr. William Ross: If we have to wait until he is present before we make our speeches we shall never speak at all.

Sir F. Maclean: I have already apologised to the hon. Member if I missed anything he said.

Mr. Ross: Do not be quite so ridiculous.

Mr. George Lawson: The hon. Member is at least the one Conservative Member opposite who is prepared to get to his feet and defend his country.

Sir F. Maclean: There has not yet been very much chance for me to get a word in edgeways. I might point out that I have been waiting hopefully since three o'clock, while hon. Members opposite have engaged in an unrivalled display of filibustering. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They may have done better in the past, but their display was unrivalled in my experience.
Since July 1963 the Board of Trade has received 830 applications for aid in Scotland. That is an encouraging sign. It is a very much higher figure than for the previous year, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will tell us how many satisfactory answers have been given. It takes a long time for a firm to get an answer when it makes an application. I have already mentioned that fact on many occasions, but there does not seem to have been as much improvement in this respect as I had hoped to see.
In this connection, I should like to take two examples from my own constituency. The first is the Ardrossan shipyard, which was almost completely derelict three or four years ago. It was then taken over by an extremely enterprising man, who has built it up into a flourishing concern. He now wants to expand still further, and, if he does, it will bring even more employment than he has already brought to the area, which badly needs it. The latest figure of unemployment in North Ayrshire is——

Mr. Ross: The hon. Member knows the exact figure.

Sir F. Maclean: It is 7·6 per cent. I wanted to get the figure exactly right so as not to be picked on by the hon. Member.
A plan for this expansion has been before my right hon. Friend's Department for over a year, but so far nothing has come of it. I hope that he will give urgent consideration to the matter and see whether he can hurry matters on.
The other illustration is the new clothing factory at Rothesay. There, thanks to the War Office, which has behaved with its usual efficiency, we were able to obtain premises extremely quickly, and the firm has started a flourishing clothing factory in a very short time. Then, last October, it applied for help to expand still further. At the present time it employs about 30 people and could employ another 60 or 70 were the application successful. The application was made in October and, during the interval additional information has been asked for and provided. So far as I know, all the information needed has now been supplied. But I am told that the final decision cannot be expected before May at the earliest. This means delaying the opportunity to employ 60 or 70 more people in an island suffering from severe unemployment. I will give the up-to-the-minute figures; they are 334, or 11·6 per cent.
In addition, anyone who has been studying the national Press recently will have read articles and letters on the subject of the depopulation of Bute and North Ayrshire. That is bound to happen unless new industries are brought

there. And now an extremely reputable and well-established firm has provided a new industry, and it has taken from October to March, and now, apparently, is to take from March until May, to get a decision on whether an extra 60 or 70 women could be employed. I hope that the Minister will see what he can do to help.
If the provisions of the Local Employment Act are applied more vigorously and if stronger inducements are given, I think considerable progress can be made. A certain amount of progress is being made already, and this is evident in Scotland. I would not say that the Labour Government did nothing towards solving the problem; I think they did quite a lot, just as this Government have done. The fact remains, however—and the hon. Member for Hamilton forgets this—that in Scotland unemployment was running at pretty consistently twice the United Kingdom figure, under the Labour Government, just as it is now. There may have been fluctuations, but that figure is about right. It is a tough, enduring problem and not an easy one for any Government to solve.

7.55 p.m.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: I make no apology for intervening in the debate, although I represent a Welsh constituency. No hon. Member from Wales ever makes an apology for making a speech at any time, anywhere.
We were all relieved to know that the unemployment figure for Wales has improved. But it would be foolish to ignore the fact that there are still problem areas in various parts of Wales where the rate of unemployment is very high. Unfortunately, these areas have suffered from persistent unemployment for a very long time, and there has been little improvement.
The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs made a statement last year that a study was being carried out by the Economic Intelligence Unit of the Welsh Office. This study will take a very long time, an unconscionable time. Last week, in a speech during the Adjournment debate the right hon. Gentleman said that the plan, which is to follow


on this study, will be available early next year. Why is it to take so long? Why particularly, when the plan for the North-East was prepared and made available in a matter of months?
What is the difference? It certainly is not the difference between the Minister for Welsh Affairs and the Lord President of the Council—or whatever is the present title of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; it changes so often that I find it difficult to remember. There is a great difference between the two Ministers. Is the Minister proposing to say that the plan for the North-East was prepared too hastily and that it would have been better had as much time been taken over it as will be taken over the Welsh plan?
What is the reason for the delay? I can assure the House that it is not because the facts have not been made available. In 12 years we have had 11 reports on various aspects of Welsh affairs—transport, depopulation, industry and other matters concerning Welsh life. No other part of the country can rival Wales in the matter of inquiries. We believe that it is time to hurry the Report and the plan. Some action should be taken. I should like to hear that we may expect the plan sooner than the Minister for Welsh Affairs led us to believe that it would be available.
What is the reason for the delay? Is it a matter of priorities? After hearing the speech of my right hon. Friend, and knowing as we do the facts about high unemployment in Scotland and the North-East we understand that those areas where unemployment is high should have first priority. But hon. Members who represent Welsh constituencies are becoming anxious. They would like to know how far this system of priorities is to be carried. This is a danger which we shall have to watch, and the Minister must watch very carefully. We have areas of high unemployment in Wales, and the conditions which have resulted in high unemployment in Scotland and the North-East are apparent in the Principality. There is a decline in our major industries and there is depopulation which is still continuing, particularly in mid Wales.
We wish to know what are to be the priorities and whether Government con-

tracts or new industries are to go to Scotland and the North-East or to one of the "black spots" in Wales, of which there are many. The Prestcold factory, at Swansea, is closing down and the Royal Ordnance Factory at Pembrey is progressively closing down. It will be completely closed down at the end of the year. We should like an assurance that Wales is not to be forgotten or left out and that we shall have equal priority with Scotland and the North-East.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Rafton Pounder: Hon. Members have been talking about Scotland and Wales and it is not surprising that I should cross the sea and speak of Northern Ireland, although my remarks could, I hope, equally apply to any area of the United Kingdom where unemployment is higher than the national average.
Although many tens of thousands of new jobs have been created in Northern Ireland in recent years, the great strides and intensive endeavours which have been made towards the provision of additional employment and new industries have, unfortunately, coincided with a run-down of employment in traditional industries. Although the face of industry there is changing faster than in any other area of the United Kingdom, there is no reason to assume that the pattern of change will not continue, perhaps at an accelerated rate, in coming years. Whether it will, in fact, be at an accelerated rate or not is not for me to speculate, but I wish to try to assess the reasons for the run-down in employment in recent years.
This, of course, to a very large extent has been due to the position of heavy industry in Northern Ireland. This applies equally to North-East England and Central Scotland. Every heavy industry in the United Kingdom has been subjected to great technological change, to increased mechanisation, and to the introduction of many labour-saving processes. There is no reason to assume that the present level of unemployment high though it is, is symptomatic of a permanent condition. The situation could be likened to a person going through a bad patch who, given a helping hand, can quickly again stand on his own feet.
If we look at Merseyside, Clydeside, the North-East and Northern Ireland, we find a common thread running through the major industries of those areas. They have all been traditional centres of heavy industry and they are all in a state of transition at present. I know that I am guilty of a generalisation in stating the cause of the current unemployment problems in those areas in this broad manner, but what is to be done about them? More particularly, what can be done by Government? While the Government can assist in persuading new factories to set up in these areas, I am doubtful of the value of something in the nature of a national planning board such as hon. Members opposite advocate.
I do not think it is practicable to say to an industrialist, "Here you will set up your factory". In the last analysis the industrialist must be given a choice of the site on which he is to establish his factory. Granted that financial inducements can be given to help him to make up his mind, but we must come back in the final analysis to his right to decide the particular site which suits him.
Another way in which the Government can help areas of higher than national average of unemployment is through the expansion of retraining schemes. It is a fallacy to assert, as some do, that because a person has been trained for one particular job he is incapable of being trained for another. In Northern Ireland an extensive retraining scheme has worked extremely satisfactorily. At the risk of introducing controversy, I would say that the trade union movement could assist by showing more flexibility in regard to apprenticeships and also the length of the period of apprenticeships. In many areas there is a chronic shortage of skilled personnel.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Where?

Mr. Pounder: The building industry nationally is one such case. I fully appreciate that it is a primary responsibility of any trade union to do its utmost to protect its members' interests. I should probably be one of the first to criticise any union which adopted a different yardstick. The position now in regard to the extreme shortage of skilled

labour is one which would justify much more flexibility by the trade unions.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: The hon. Member has claimed, and ought to put, the figures on record, that Northern Ireland has had an extensive programme of industrial training—more, I take it, than in any other part of the United Kingdom. I should like to hear the exact figures. It would seem that the trade unions are co-operating more there than it is alleged elsewhere. Is he also suggesting that the trade unions should encourage this extensive retraining to go further to provide men for the chronic shortages, not in Northern Ireland, but in other parts of the United Kingdom? Is he advocating mass migration from Northern Ireland?

Mr. Pounder: No. The hon. Member has, I think, deliberately or innocently taken me up completely wrongly. I said at the outset of my remarks that they could apply equally to any part of the United Kingdom. On this point I am thinking not so much of Northern Ireland, but of the whole United Kingdom, where there is a chronic shortage of skilled labour in the building industry.
Since the hon. Member raised the point, in Northern Ireland the Government retraining centres have been successful so far as they have gone. I should, of course, like to see more of them, but that is outside the compass of this debate.

Mr. Bence: The hon. Member said that there was restriction by the trade unions. My information, in reading about the building trade, is that it fails to attract young people. That has nothing to do with restriction by the trade unions

Mr. Pounder: With respect to the hon. Member, I beg to differ on this point, because my understanding from persons connected with the building trade, with whom I have been in contact at various times, is that the trade union movement is rigid in its attitude to apprenticeship schemes. If it were not so rigid, my friends in the industry and other firms feel that that they could expand their businesses quite substantially. I can only speak from what I have been told.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Who said that?

Mr. Pounder: Read it tomorrow in HANSARD. I thought that I spoke loudly enough to be heard.
I come to one particular case in Northern Ireland of a shortage of skilled labour. This was not in my constituency, but in a neighbouring one. Recently, a firm gave notice that it would have to close because of shortage of skilled labour. This, under any circumstances, is a regrettable situation, but in an area where we have higher than the national level of unemployment it is particularly unfortunate that firms should have to close. This illustration from my own area is equally relevant to other parts of the country.
Government expenditure on defence over the years has reached such proportions that it is now an essential part of the national economy. It follows, therefore, that the Government in its many and varied forms is one of industry's best customers. I have long held the view that there should be two criteria in the allocation of Government contracts: first, the obvious economic consideration of the best value for money, but, secondly, and closely allied, there should be the social considerations.
I shall not digress to talk about the aircraft industry in Belfast as we shall have an opportunity of dealing with that later. I am not advocating for a moment that Government funds should be extravagantly applied, nor that the taxpayers' money should be used to bolster up every decaying industry in the country, but there is a world of difference between wasteful extravagance and the Government giving a fillip to those industries in those areas which are temporarily in need of assistance. Of course, the taxpayers' money must be used to the best national advantage, but surely the national advantage must include social as well as purely economic considerations.
I would like to introduce a specific point on which I hope the Minister will comment. Something causing considerable concern in Northern Ireland is the need for further technological research into the computer industry—not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the United Kingdom. As matters are proceeding now it appears that a situation

is likely to develop when the British computer industry will be nothing more or less than a marketing agency for imported American machines. Would the Minister consider restricting the importation of American computers into the United Kingdom until such time as the situation has been thoroughly investigated? What are his views on the subject?
To sum up, I consider that there are three ways in which the Government can assist in the provision of employment in areas of above-average unemployment. The first is by imaginative assistance in the attraction of new industry, the second is the provision of sufficient and comprehensive retraining schemes, and the third is the allocation of Government contracts.

8.11 p.m.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: The United Kingdom is united once more. We have, in the various speeches, been from Scotland to Wales and on to Northern Ireland. It last we are now back home.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The debate is not over yet.

Dr. Bray: No doubt my hon. Friend will take us on a second tour. Meanwhile, there is one point on which all parts of the United Kingdom are agreed; the incompetence of the Government to tackle the problem we are discussing tonight. All hon. Members feel strongly about his problem because of its human aspects. We get heavily involved in statistics about the numbers of unemployed, the complexities of the Local Employment Act, computers and who knows what kind of incentives to industry, but behind it all are the people we meet at our weekly "surgeries"; the unfortunate people who are in hopeless positions, who have been unemployed for months and often years, some of whom have been retrained but have found themselves on the scrap heap, and others who are just unable to find employment. It is this kind of sharp human hardship which is well known to hon. Members personally which, above all, adds poignancy to the debate.
In addition to the human hardship there are other problems, like the sheer waste of resources, to be considered. When we complain of the unemployment


in Scotland and the North-East, as well as parts of England and Wales, it is because of the untapped enormous reserves of resources which could be put at the disposal of the country if proper and imaginative steps were taken by the Government. What is needed to solve these problems is beginning to sink in to the consciousness of the Government, who are making appropriate kinds of noises, even if they are not seriously meant. It is interesting to note in the White Paper:
The aim will be to promote a steady rise in economic activity as the basis for the continued growth of employment in the regions … Positive action is needed to improve the whole range of services which underpin the regions' economic activity.
That is splendid, and similar noises are made about Scotland. We read about
… a comprehensive and sustained programme for the modernisation of the economy of Central Scotland.
We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) what this is adding up to. Still, let us carry the argument along as far as we can with the Government and welcome this broadening of approach to the problem of local unemployment. In this broader approach of seeing the development and growth of the regions as a comprehensive problem covering the whole community, there are two opposite dangers and, with the Government's happy felicity, they promise to fall into both of them. The first is the wider action on transport, building up the substructure and so on—but the aim of reducing unemployment is entirely lost sight of. The actions which are proposed in the White Paper do not seem to be based on any estimate of need in relation to the number of jobs which will be provided or the adequacy of the likely results in terms of reduced unemployment.
There is no estimate of the rate of reduction in unemployment—the rate of increased employment—and in the plans for bridges, roads and further developments, which we all welcome, there is very little sense of the immediate urgency of the problem. The initial reaction in the North-East was, "This is fine, but where are the jobs?" That was how the Report was first received, for it was considered that it contained no considera-

tion of the short-term employment problem there.
The other danger in losing sight of the objective of reducing unemployment is that of getting the balance wrong when dealing with the wider issues—transport, housing, education and so on—and of not appreciating the tremendous importance in the life of the community in the regions of these issues.
There are other aims, apart from reducing unemployment, but it is often not realised that these must be fitted together into a balanced whole. We do not seem to have any unifying concept with which to achieve a reduction in unemployment against the background of the other objectives to enrich the life of the community. In particular, we see that the regional problem cannot be expressed in terms of unemployment alone, yet we know that it is precisely reciprocal to the problems in the North-East and Scotland and can only be tackled in conjunction with them.
Taking the primary aim first—of the reduction of unemployment—along with the dangers of losing sight of everything else, how well are the Government doing? Their policies have not made any impression on the problem at all. If we regard the objective as the full use of our economic resources, we are not asking for charity or merely for consideration of the personal hardships of our constituents but for hard, commonsense efforts to achieve the full use of the economic factors of production. The trouble is that we are going back through the old cycle which we knew in the 'fifties and 'sixties. We can think of the development districts as the least fully-deployed eighth of the working population; there are about 3 million workers in the development districts out of about 25 million in the whole country. That situation has not changed greatly in the last five years.
Let us consider the two main economic problems; the first is the perilous stop-go policies and the difficulties overall. The second is the regional imbalance—the lack of equilibrium in time from one period to another and in space from one region to another. It would be helpful if we could get these two major economic problems into perspective against each other. What,


firstly, is the cost of stop-go? On the most conservative estimate—that is, not that we could grow at the rate of 4 per cent., as N.E.D.C. promised, but simply if we could maintain a steady rate, smoothly from one peak to another, not rising faster overall but maintaining a steady rate of growth which does not dip down between the peaks. Based on maintaining a 2·7 per cent. growth such as we have had in the past twelve years, we would have an addition to our gross domestic product of about £600 million a year. That is the measure of our benefit from escaping from stop-go.
What benefit would we derive from overcoming our regional problems? Here we have no work from the Government to help us—they have not made any estimate of the cost of regional unemployment and of the differences in regional activities. That is extraordinary, when they are prepared to spend quite large sums of money to deal with the matter. Trying to make an estimate, one can say that, apart from the trade cycle—the stop-go cycle—the excess of unemployment in the development districts over the rest of the country has been at least 2 per cent.
At the peak of unemployment in the trough of each trade cycle, the difference in unemployment in Great Britain as a whole and in the development districts is more than 2 per cent.—it rises to 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. but, at its lowest point, it is 2 per cent. In an essay that has been so closely read by hon. Members opposite and made the basis of their economic policy in recent years, Professor Paish argues that each 1 per cent. increase of unemployment over the 1 per cent. level corresponds to a 5 per cent. under-utilisation of capacity; there is a multiplying factor of five between unemployment and loss of production.
This would lead, with 2 per cent. unemployment in one-eighth of the working population, to an annual loss of national income of about £280 million. That is the amount lost by the Government through their failure to tackle the regional problem. It matches up fairly closely with the estimate made by the N.E.D.C. of the additional manpower available for the development districts. The N.E.D.C. places that at between

200,000 and 300,000 people, bringing in the housewives who want to work, the people who have retired prematurely, and the people who would be able to get work in London and the South-East but cannot get work—and would never dream of trying, let alone registering for unemployment benefit—in the North-East and Scotland.
That would lead to an increase in national product, again, of between £200 million and £300 million a year—an enormous sum; £200 million would pay for 100,000 houses a year, or for the total cost of a 10s. increase in the old-age pension. As it is, this money is just being wasted by the Government's failure to tackle the regional problem.
Where are we now in the cycle? In the stop-go cycle, national unemployment is dropping, and unemployment in the development districts is dropping with unemployment in the country as a whole, but the margin remains exactly as before.
In 1961, unemployment in the development districts stood at 3·7 per cent., In Great Britain it was 1·5 per cent., and the difference between them was 2·2 per cent. averaged over whole year. The average rose in 1963 to 5·8 per cent. in the development districts, 2·5 in Great Britain, and the difference between the two was 3·3 per cent. National unemployment is now down to 2·2 per cent. The figures in the development districts have barely begun to shift—they are down to 5·3 per cent.—and the difference is 3·1 per cent.
But the National Institute estimates that by January, 1965 unemployment in Great Britain as a whole will have dropped to 1·5 per cent. I think that it may well have dropped in the development districts to about 3·7 per cent., leaving a difference of about 2·2 per cent. There is thus no change from the situation as we knew it in 1961, and we would, in 1965, be all set to embark again on the same sickening cycle, the same problem of high unemployment recurring in the development districts. Nothing structural has been done about the situation.
Looking at the present policy of the Government, if this is right—if, indeed, the level of unemployment over one-eighth of the most poorly employed


parts of the country is to drop to 3·7 per cent. in a year's time—it comes well below the level of 4½ per cent. unemployment which the Board of Trade considers to be the level at which it schedules an area as a development district. Are we then to get mass descheduling as soon as the unemployment in the development districts is temporarily—temporarily, I stress—below 4½ per cent.? The Government will claim, and I am sure that it will be claimed tonight, that the regional unemployment problem has been solved, but that is not the case. I will argue it in detail with reference to one area in a moment, but there is this danger that the Government will really think that the problem has been solved and that, as has happened in the past, we shall find all the measures just dropped.
The fact is that this residual £200 million or £300 million worth of national productive capacity will continue unused all through this year and the next year, and will continue until the Government do something about regional development as a whole. When I first came to this House 18 months ago, unemployment was on the rise and, in my foolishness, I thought that there was at least some chance of the Government taking short-term action in the many ways possible. That was hoping for too much.
What the Government did was to plough into their long-term considerations. We got the Report on the North-East, which deals solely with long-term issues. But then we found that these long-term issues were biassed by the need to use them to tackle short-term problems and we have no assurance that we have got to the root of the long-term issues because what has been done has been applied to the wrong problem. These unused resources of £200 million or £300 million are only the initial reservoir of unused resources. Once these are mopped up, and growth starts, the gain would obviously be more than £300 million.
For an independent view I turn to the Economic Review of August, 1963, published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. After reviewing the Government's measures, this reasonably objective journal says:

It is clear that the existing measures barely touch the fringe of the problem of securing a rational distribution of the population throughout the country. They are mainly directed to the task of reducing the high level of unemployment in certain districts, and have so far made little impression even on that problem … If it is seriously intended to provide in all parts of the country an agreeable and balanced environment … a much more positive approach to planning both on a national and regional scale is going to be needed … But it is not resources that are at present the limiting factor, but the will to act.
A similar cold reception was given by the Economist in its review of the White Papers on the North-East and Scotland. When I quoted these to the Home Secretary this afternoon he said that I should never believe the Economist as he once worked for it, which sounded to me a somewhat two-edged response.
This is what the Economist had to say in an article, headed appositely, "New crutches for the North":
The first thing to say about the regional plan for central Scotland and north-east England is that they are not really modern economic plans at all. They are not drawn up in terms of any Keynesian estimate of the gap between demand and potential supply there, because it does not seem to have occurred to anybody in the Government that such language and thinking would be relevant. An innocent might have expected some estimate of the present annual value of production in these two regions, and a comparison with what the planners estimated could perhaps be economically produced there if all of these regions' resources were fully and efficiently utilised …
This is the reaction of people who try to think objectively about these problems.
What is involved in this much more positive approach to planning which everybody thinks to be necessary? We can perhaps feel our way towards this by looking at some of the instances of present Government policies in this matter. The first is the sheer lack of will and determination to do anything about it, the defeatism, the inferiority complex which seems to possess all Government Departments when they come to deal with these problems.
I should like to quote from a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. I was putting to him the point that if we were to establish a new industrial estate in development areas, as we hope to do on Tees-side it is pretty pointless to expect to be able to


provide all the skilled labour when it is perfectly apparent that there is a shortage of skilled labour already in the area. There is no electrician unemployed between Whitby and Seaton Carew in the North-East. I was told this by the district secretary of the E.T.U. the other day. At the same time there are thousands unemployed, many skilled in other trades and a great many not skilled at all. Obviously there is a great need for training. The way to start off an industrial estate would be to put a training school there first.
The Parliamentary Secretary's reply was:
… study of the practical implications of the proposals has revealed a number of difficulties. First, we do not know what kind of industry will be coming to the estate and therefore any training that might be done would be purely speculative and could be wasted. Nor do we know either how much skilled labour will be needed or in what trades.
I argued that when I.C.I. established its factory on the new site at Wilton the first thing it did was to put up a new apprentice school, but the hon. Gentleman said:
… the situation there was very different. As only the one firm was involved—a firm moreover accustomed to making sophisticated forecasts of this nature and to planning ahead—it could assess what skills would be needed and in what numbers and was able to arrange a co-ordinated training programme.
The I.C.I. training programme was only peanuts in comparison with its needs, but the company knew that such a start had to be made. No such attitude can be found in the Ministry of Labour today. This suggestion that sophisticated forecasting and planning ahead is quite beyond the capacity of planners in the Ministry of Labour is the kind of humility which may be becoming in a Tory Parliamentary Secretary but it is an insult to the men who work for him. Of course they are as capable of sophisticated planning as anybody in industry, but when there is a Minister who takes a defeatist attitude towards practical problems this demoralises the Department. If a Minister is determined to act there is the material in the Department which can be invoked, and when we get rid of the present dead-wood Ministers we shall see that that is the case.
The Parliamentary Secretary went on to say:
It seems to us that it would be much too chancey and taking too serious a risk with young people's lives to train them without even an approximate certainty of employment.
The hon. Gentleman says that if we train people they will be worse off than they are now. He is not even offering an approximate certainty of employment to young people on Tees-side. This is an astonishing, pessimistic and defeatist attitude.
What then happens with this attitude, which is defeatist, when insight too is completely lacking? Again I refer to the local situation on Tees-side but it is typical of that in many places, particularly in Grangemouth which has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton. On Tees-side we were very busy up to 1961. The old plants—the old steel mills and chemical plants—were turning out their goods, using a fair amount of locally mined coal and iron ore. At the same time, we were very busy constructing splendid new plants which were obviously going to alter the character of employment in the whole area.
Yet suddenly construction and new investment fell off very sharply indeed. In the four giants on Tees-side—the Dorman Long Steel Company, the South Durham Steel Company, and the Billing-ham and Wilton sites of I.C.I.—investment fell from a peak of £45 million in 1957 to £24 million in 1961, which when allowance is made for changes in cost, is more than a 50 per cent. reduction. What happened was that construction workers were laid off. The locally mined materials were replaced by imported oil and imported iron ore. The old plants closed, and the new plants, as they opened up, required far less labour to achieve the much increased volume of production.
Yet, while all this was going on, while all this investment was being planned in the early 1950s, no thought at all was given to the effect of the timing of this investment on the local economy or on local employment. From about 1955 to about 1959 all the big firms and contractors in the area were cutting each others' throats to get labour. There was a tremendous pressure on employment in the area and it appeared as if this would


go on for ever, but it was in fact known as early as 1959 that it would fall off very sharply and nothing was done until 1962.
This lack of consideration of the timing of investment was not even in the interests of the firms themselves. Only last month a director of South Durham, speaking at the blowing in of a big new blast furnace at West Hartlepool, said that this furnace would have been fully operative three years ago if it had not been for the depression. In other words, given the state of trade as it was, that enormous investment in South Durham was made three years too early. Either the level as forecast in the whole country should have been maintained and should have used the steel capacity which was available, or that work in constructing that plant could have filled in a great deal of the dip in employment in 1962 and 1963. This did not happen.
It would not matter if these things were merely in the past, but the really worrying thing is that no thought is being given to these problems even now. There is no evidence that I can find anywhere in the regional offices of the Board of Trade, in the regional offices of the Ministry of Labour, in the headquarters of the Board of Trade, let alone in the Treasury or in N.E.D.C., of any record of investment plans by region in terms of the future employment which will be taken up by the process of investment itself and which will result from an investment when it is completed. I know of no such projections. If the Economic Secretary can tell me of any such projections, I hope that he will not merely tell me that they exist but will also ensure that they are published, because they are a most important factor which firms can, and would like to, take into consideration in planning their own investment.
The position as it now stands is that an immense wave of investment is on its way which will keep Tees-side very busy in 1965 and 1966, but this wave of investment when it recedes, as it certainly will under present plans, will provide a negligible number of new jobs. We shall have the same cut again—old plants being replaced by new, more highly capital intensive plants employing fewer men. The time to plan for the future is now. But there is no evidence that one can find that the Government

are embarking on the plans necessary so that, when these investments fall off in about three years, there will be either new investment or new labour-intensive industry on its way to maintain the level of economic activity.
The Government will argue, what good is it trying to tackle the problems of the future when there is such a millstone round our neck in Northern Ireland, the North-East generally and Scotland? Certainly, there is the millstone, but do they say that they can never see any prospect at all of gathering the information and devising the planning machinery co-operatively with industry in order to maintain a steady level of economic activity, even when one is dealing with such industrial giants as the steel industry and the chemical industry? If so, there is no hope of the Government maintaining a steady level of employment in a much more complex pattern of industrial activity elsewhere.
As regards the machinery which the Government can use to maintain a steady level of activity, at present they rely very heavily on capital incentives. If I may quote again from the Economist—perhaps I am giving more weight to the journal than it really deserves—on 7th June, in a series of articles on the North-East, it was said:
The Government's actions are both generous and amateurish. They are generous in concessions to new industrial and commercial investment; the measures of this year's budget do give very large sums indeed to any firm wishing to expand here"—
that is, in the North-East—
This has had proven and striking successes, such as the project by Chrysler-Cummins to establish a new diesel engine plant at Darlington. But there remain certain administrative clumsinesses in the arrangements for loans to investors; and it does seem a bit contrary to the spirit of the thing that Imperial Chemical Industries are likely to get a vast Government contribution to an investment of £30 million which they would have made anyway, which may be largely spent on plants bought outside the region. and which will give a negligible number of jobs once the construction is finished.
To be fair the Economist goes on to say:
But then I.C.I. certainly does well by the economy of its own locality on Tees-side; and investments of this capital-intensive … kind have a thrusting effect far wider than the jobs they directly provide.


My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton raised a question in this connection with reference to Grangemouth. He asked where was the evidence that Grangemouth had, in fact, provided an increased level of local employment due to ancillary industries springing up round about. No such evidence is to be found in the history of Tees-side in the early days of the petro-chemicals and plastics development there, where, again, there have been the materials available for ten years as they are also available at Grangemouth.
We expect from the Government chapter and verse about the very large sums of money which they are prepared to spend, which, of course, we welcome, while wondering whether they are being spent in the way which will get down to the problem of providing sufficient employment of the kinds needed.
On 6th February last, at Question Time, the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade questioned my statement that focal industry in the North-East regards capital incentives as inefficient. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had had no complaints from firms. Here is a quotation from a speech made by the managing director of the heavy organical chemicals division of I.C.I., Mr. K. W. Palmer, speaking to the Tees-side Junior Chamber of Commerce. Short of saying, "Here is your £4 million back again", he went about as far as he could in criticism of the balance of the Government's policy. He said:
More and more our heavy industry trends to the capital intensive with fewer and fewer jobs per unit of capital and output. We need more labour-intensive industry, and we need the magnets to pull it here. Helpful as are the Government's aids to attract new industry, these aids are linked so closely with capital investment that they are less and less effective in the case of industries in which capital charges of one kind or another form a much smaller part of total operational costs. I would prefer to see additional special kinds of aid linked more closely, in respect of provision of permanent employment, to the real needs of the area.
This is the manager of an I.C.I. division speaking, not the financial directors, who, I understand, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade are in the habit of ringing up to find out their views.
It is not the financial directors who make economic decisions in large industry. They merely fiddle the tax when everybody else has done the work. Of course, they are in favour of tax incentives because it makes them cleverer financial directors than they would otherwise be. But if the Government consult the men who make the decisions, which in modern advanced industry tend to be the technical directors, the production directors, the sales directors, and so on, they will get a very different picture from the advice which evidently led the Government to their present set of capital incentives for industry.
Mr. Palmer goes on:
I would also like to see some redistribution of Government departments away from London, and Tees-side take something from
the over-concentration there. What is happening with regard to the Post Office? Did the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade intervene in the Cabinet the other day to stop the Postmaster-General sending the Post Office Savings Bank to Tees-side, or was it the Prime Minister himself who intervened? What will the Government decide in this case where the wishes of the staff and the needs of the area have been clearly expressed and have matched up so well?
Perhaps more important for the long-term future than any question of incentives is that of laying the structure of the future development of industry. Mr. Palmer says:
I would like to see a new university on Tees-side preferably a special institution for scientific and technological education and research of very special character.
The consideration of the Robbins proposals for special institutions is for the University Grants Committee, but it is not competent to deal with regional issues. When it has determined the kind of system that it wants, it will be for the Government to decide the geographical distribution of the new institutions. I hope that they will realise that this is, in fact, a question of determining a very large part of our future social and economic structure.
The Lord President of the Council already has responsibility for research and in future will have responsibility for higher education. It is he who, under the present Government, will be


responsible for determining the future location of universities and special institutions. Yet he says that research associations in development areas are eligible to apply for grants under the Local Employment Acts and he hopes that some of them will take advantage of this. In view of the very great influence which the Lord President of the Council exerts over research associations and the line on which they can develop, it is extraordinary that his rôle is purely passive. He merely hopes that these bodies will take advantage of incentives.
Cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman organise the grouping together of research associations so that they are able to reach a viable size and to do sound technical work, stimulating each other and having much fuller contact with industry? There is no evidence of this free riding, confident approach to industry from the Lord President of the Council. I am worried what his reaction will be to any proposal of the University Grants Committee.
What do these anecdotes about one particular local situation add up to in the general shape of local employment policies which we should expect the Government to follow? First, we need a much more sensitive adaptation to the industrial development that is under way. We do not know where we are going. The investment of 1960 and 1961 has not been aimed at satisfying the needs of the consumer or of other industries and there is a great deal of surplus capacity in the manufacturing industry which has not yet been used.
We have the situation that even now, it is not expected that at the peak of the next boom the plant and machinery in which people have invested will be fully extended. There will be shortages of manpower and unbalances of demand, which mean that large plants still will not be fully employed. This is a most inefficient way of going about things within industry. For industry's own internal health, it needs much better balancing of investment and supply against future demand. We need, therefore, a full model of the future development of demand.
Many hon. Members, on both sides, have quoted the forecasts of require-

ments for different kinds of labour prepared by Professor Richard Stone at the Department of Applied Economics, Cambridge. Those forecasts suggest that there will be need for a large increase in the number of skilled men and a corresponding decrease in the number of unskilled men at the rate of 150,000 a year. This is only part of a much larger piece of work. Within the next few weeks, there will be coming out a model of consumer demand showing how consumer demand is likely to develop with, changes in the levels of incomes of different groups.
The Board of Trade and the Treasury have not exactly been knocking at Professor Stone's door eager to find out the results and what evidence these are likely to give about the directions of future fruitful investment. Had the Board of Trade been on its toes in pursuing a regional development policy, it would be wanting to identify the industries in which there will be a great deal of growth over the next five or ten years and making sure that the new investment is not only undertaken for these industries, but by the Government, using such foreknowledge as they are able to accumulate and offering incentives to industry to go to development areas by saying, "Go there. Invest in these lines. We are confidence that there will be a market for your goods. If there is not a market for your goods, we will provide tax incentives", which could be of the kind of which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) and others have mentioned. The chances are, however, that there would be a demand for their goods and that no incentive would be required. To hon. Members opposite, this is strange thinking.

Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot: This is not strange thinking. The hon. Member is really saying that a Government Department would be a better guesser of what customers want than would be the executives in business. A perfect example of how the executives in business can guess wrong is what is happening with refrigerator production. I do not see any reason to believe that a Government Department would be better guessers of consumer demand.

Dr. Bray: The hon. Member is doing an injustice o the Board of Trade. It is


clear that there was heavy over-investment in the consumer durable industry, and this was said in many places at the time. The Board of Trade, however, did not see fit to take initiative in directing the investment into more fruitful channels. It should have done. Had it taken the right approach, industry would have responded.
Given a much more fluent and much quicker adapting attitude to industry, there is no reason why that £200 million or £300 million worth of productive capacity should not be quickly set to the service of the nation and the problem of unemployment in all the development districts made a thing of the past, so that we can go forward together to reap the tremendous advantages and benefits of industrial development instead of suffering them as a scourge, as we do today.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: I am in favour of short speeches and I intend to make one. I will, therefore, return to the opening speech of the debate, in which the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred to the use of industrial development certificates and how this process could be stiffened. I shall take the difference between the tenor and content of the hon. Member's remarks and those of his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short), when we last debated the subject. On that occasion, the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central, leading for the Opposition, referred to the need to direct industry.
We have had no reference so far this afternoon to directing industry, and if this is a very subtle change that has come over the Opposition I hope that at the end of the debate the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) will make quite clear where the Labour Party stands on this matter. If he supports his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central he will be attacking his hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and if he supports the hon. Member for Hamilton he will be letting down his compatriot the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central. So he will have a problem either way. I hope that the Labour Party will come to the

point and tell us whether it believes in the direction of industry.
We must see this whole problem of the development districts against the background of the national economy. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), who has at last sat down, referred to the stop-go policy.

Dr. Bray: The hon. Member has complained about the length of my speech. I should like to point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), who spoke earlier today, said that he always made speeches which were much shorter than those of hon. Members who had entered the House only by recent by-elections. I therefore had to prove that my right hon. Friend was correct.

Mr. Williams: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is answerable to the right hon. Member for Easington already.
We have to see this problem of the development districts against the background of the economy as a whole. The hon. Gentleman was quite right when he said that against the background of stop-go it was the development districts in the end which suffered the most. They are the first to suffer and take the longest to recover. That is why I suspect that on both sides of the House we approve of any Government policy which aims at eliminating stop-go and achieves a consistent, thought-out, well-conceived plan of development and expansion.
Therefore, I regretted intensely the incursions of Labour leaders into this foray of trade matters in the publication of the January trade figures. Their comments at that time did no service either to Britain or to the development districts. It seemed to me that those comments, based on too short a series of figures, were intended to exaggerate the country's problems and hurt the recovery of the North-East and other development districts.
The February figures have shown a return to more normal conditions and to a sound, expanding economy which is the basis for helping the development districts. It is only against the background of a soundly developing economy that we can even out the position


between the "two nations" which has been referred to. This question of the "two nations" must be ironed out. Here we have two comments, one made by an ex-Member of this House, Mr. George Chetwynd, who was the Member for Stockton-on-Tees and who said not long ago that the recovery of the North-East was substantial, and another comment from someone who cannot be considered to be a party politician either of the Left or of this side of the House, Mr. Sadler Forster, the chairman of the Industrial Estates Management Corporation.
Speaking on the 12th or 13th of this month, he told members of the Tyneside Productivity Association that
if the present industrial trends continue, the region's unemployment rate might drop below even 2·5 per cent. This year he thought the figure would drop to around 3·5 per cent. from the present high 4·1 per cent.
I would agree if hon. Members opposite tell me that this is too high a figure; of course it is. It is a substantial advance on the present situation, and we must not be Jeremiah enough to neglect it. This is an improvement of some fairly considerable value. It is against this background of independent spokesmen that we must take some reliable evidence into account. We must look at what has been done by the Government in the short term and the long term. There are three main fields in which the Government have operated in the short term. One was the Budget concessions of last year, and those were substantial. If they have not had full effect yet that is hardly surprising. A large and expanding industry must take considerable time to follow through the action of the Government into the digging of the ground and the building of factories. So I would expect the tax concessions of last year to become effective in the next 12 months.
The Government's second action was the shipping credit scheme, by which £75 million—seen against the concessions to the farmers, that is slight, but it is something—has been made available to the industry. This is a sizeable and valuable advance. I hope that we shall get as much appreciation for it on the part of the Opposition as from this side.
It is interesting that of the tonnage placed a large proportion has gone to the North-East. If the Clyde can combat these figures, I shall be delighted to hear it. In recent months more than 700,000 tons dead weight of shipping has been placed in North-East yards and more than half of that has rightly come to the Wear. Forty-one projects have been started in the North-East since April last year.
It is depressing to me that the Opposition never see anything good in all this. Looking through the figures, one sees expans on in Darlington, Billingham, Stockton, Tees-Port, Hartlepools, Peterlee, Newton Aycliffe, Spennymoor, Blaydon, Team Valley, Hebburn, South Shields, Blyth, Ashington and Sunderland and other places. Here are sizeable projects coming forward. Under the Local Employment Act £100 million has been pledged, and 17,000 jobs are in the pipeline This is valuable, and it helps to put the matter into perspective to have these things reported.
As to the long-term thinking and remedies, it is, first, important that we in the North-East and in the other development districts should think regionally and not act internally against each other. This is now acceptable, I believe, across the board in politics and industry and anywhere else where these things are thought about.
The second thing is the attitude of mind in any particular region. Again, I quote Mr. Sadler Forster. At the meeting, of the Tyneside Productivity Association he gave a warning that the future of the area depended as much on a new attitude of mind as it did on new industry. Frankly, I agree. I can say this because I was born and grew up in the North-East. I still think that we in the North-East are stapled down to the attitudes of the last century. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North appears to dissent from this. I am not attacking the trade unions.

Mr. Willey: This does a great deal of harm.

Mr. Williams: The hon. Member says that it does a great deal of harm, but it also does a great deal of harm not to expose fallacies of thinking as well. Both on the management side and on


the trade union side there are far too many out-dated attitudes towards this matter. It is all very well to blame the Government, but one cannot shelve the problems off on to other people all the time. These problems in the development districts will be solved only by a change of attitude and the abandonment of the fear of unemployment.
I concede that unless one has a sense of security it is difficult to abandon the fear of unemployment. But we must take more courage in solving the problem—I am sorry if the hon. Member for Sunderland, North does not like my raising this matter—of demarcation in the shipbuilding industry. I will say how I think that the problem should be solved. I do not believe that the industry will solve the problem internally any longer. There is too much confrontation between the two sides.
The time has long passed when the Ministry of Labour, or even the Minister of Labour, could take the initiative in bringing the two sides together and dictate, if need be, an answer. The Minister should draw the fire of the two sides, perhaps making himself desperately unpopular with both sides, to resolve some of the problems which are now nearly crucifying the shipbuilding industry. These things must be faced if we are to modernise effectively.
The third long-term remedy which I have in mind is the Hailsham or Heath plan, whichever one likes to call it. I am convinced that an increase in the public service expenditure over and above our just due to an unfairly high and thoroughly acceptable level is the right way to handle the problem. It helped for houses, roads, hospitals and other services.
I have two specific questions to put to my hon. Friend. Is he satisfied that the port facilities of the North-East are adequate? At the beginning of February I received a document from a gentleman in Sunderland suggesting certain developments of port facilities in the North-East and, naturally, his first proposal was for the development of the Port of Sunderland. I forwarded that document to the Board of Trade at that time and have not yet had a reply.
That does not seem like the most speedy consideration one would wish.

It may be that this project is of such size and practicality that it would take a long time to get the details fixed, but for six weeks to pass without a reply from the Board of Trade seems to reflect a slow reaction.
Secondly, there is the proposed development of Washington as a new town. It is a considerable time since we heard that Tube Investments would be building a new factory there and that there would be a new town. Precious little progress seems to have been made. May we have a progress report on the development of Washington? I do not think that it is a completely well conceived plan, but if we are to have a new town let us produce new industry there for a start.
The Post Office Savings Bank headquarters has been mentioned. In considering the location of the headquarters, there is a strong argument for associating The Hartlepools and Sunderland, which are quite close together and which have over 6 per cent. unemployed. If it goes to Tees-side, however, that is our loss and Tees-side's gain. Both towns have been lobbying for it. Surely this could have been considered. But, again, the Post Office selected three given areas—Tees-side, Merseyside and Clydeside—and did not look very positively on consideration of Sunderland at any rate, and, I suspect, of The Hartlepools as well.
I come back to what I said at Questime Time today. The Board of Trade should reconsider its policy towards advance factory building and the financing of these projects. I have suggested on a number of occasions that these factories should, where possible, be sold to the occupying firms and that the Board of Trade should not take so passive an attitude but should adopt a more positive approach.
I realise the difficulties in relation to the Treasury, but I believe that there can be a strong case for using the cash income from the sale of these factories for the financing of more advanced factories. The Board of Trade could, by a self-financing process, provide extra factory accommodation.
Over the years the Sunderland education authority has been profoundly


upset—and I am sure that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South will agree with me here—because the Sunderland Technical College has not been recognised as a college of advanced technology. I understand all the limitations which are placed on a further classification in this category for the moment, but I still feel that, in a region where there is, as far as I know, no college of advanced technology—I believe that this is the only region without one at the moment—there is a case for doing something about this, and quickly.
Finally, in looking to the long-term future, I want to re-emphasise the importance of retraining. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West mentioned this and I am sure that retraining is the right thing to carry out. But I do not think that one can hope to be able to give guarantees that at the end of a training period, people will be certain to find jobs. That is a risk that the nation has to take in training for luture demands rather than for guaranteed future positions. I believe that the same thing applies to the trade unions. It also applies to those leaving school, to the unemployed under training and to those in industry who also need retraining. We need completely new thinking about training for skills of future years.
Finally, I come to a point which I know can easily, in party political terms, be misunderstood. But even so close to a General Election I want to raise this very difficult and delicate matter. It is how we are to help that section of the unemployed who nip into and out of employment, who nip into and out of National Assistance? I do not know the answer to the problem. I merely raise the matter as a question. There is a section of the community which lives by National Assistance. This is a difficult problem to raise in the political context of today, but I think that it is as bad for the nation as it is for the individuals themselves, and I believe that some way must be found of encouraging those people to get away from the debilitating atmosphere of hopping into and out of employment and relapsing into National Assistance and out of it.
It may be that the answer, in the long run, is to raise the basic wage in industry

to such a level that they will live above the National Assistance scales, but there can be no doubt that at the moment there are some people who find it profitable to live on National Assistance rather than do a day's work. They are a very small minority, but this atmosphere of hopping in and out of National Assistance can spread and harm the moral fibre of people with greater strength. That is the danger. I do not pretend to have an answer to the problem, but I think that it is worth posing.
I return to the theme of what I have been trying to say, namely, that action has been taken by the Government, both in the short and in the long term. Those who represent areas in the development districts applaud them for what they have done so far, and will encourage them to ever greater action in the future.

9.11 p.m.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I much regret the last part of the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), because he posed a question which, with all respect, is a problem of a society having over-full employment. Like other hon. Members who represent constituencies in which there has been considerable unemployment for many years, I know that one of the consequences of a high unemployment rate locally is lower wage rates, and the inevitable consequence of that is the operation of the so-called wage stop. That means that the unemployed who have the misfortune to live in an area of consistently high unemployment suffer the disadvantage of having the lowest National Assistance rates below the determination of needs level compared with other parts of the country. That is a cruel thing.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that there are people, albeit a small minority, who dodge in and out of National Assistance, and in and out of employment. That may happen in Bournemouth at the present time. It does not happen in the majority of the constituencies affected by unemployment. That kind of argument hits hard at the unemployed, and, if the hon. Gentleman does not know it, it robs the genuinely unemployed, who are in the overwhelming majority, of just a little more of their moral fibre. There are many men


in their fifties and sixties, in distinguished posts in industry, who look back with bitterness to the hungry years and are forever scarred by the memory when somebody asked, "Are you genuinely looking for work?" To revive that atmosphere at this time is a mistake.
I should like to think that after a decade of Labour government we shall ourselves be considering this tiny minority who exploit the National Assistance position, but that is not the problem today. I think that the hon. Gentleman spoiled an otherwise good speech by making that point.
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman's speech is probably the last one that he will make on unemployment, at any rate while representing Sunderland. I hope that this is the last debate that we shall have on unemployment during the life of this Parliament, because I should like some variation of the old themes, and I hope that we might get that in the next Parliament. I expect that we are going to have the same reply as we have had so often from Ministers.
I am always pleased to hear the hon. Member for Sunderland, South. He is very much a disciple of Benjamin Disraeli, in that he has always been in favour of reforms—reforms in the past, rather than in the future. We have taken him along the line of conversion, point by point, and he is now an enthusiastic disciple. Hon. Members should recall his wonderful remark about shipbuilding credits. I can remember the day when he was not too keen about them, but in our last debate on shipbuilding he was with us in demanding that we should take the shipbuilding credit scheme a stage further.
We must remember that this is just a breathing space for the industry. To quote the Minister, this is a "once-for-all" form of assistance. They were ominous words for hon. Members opposite. The Minister said that after this single injection of credit the industry must find its own shape and size. We know what he meant by that. He meant that it would become smaller than it is at present. He meant that there would be more unemployment among skilled men in the shipbuilding towns.
This is merely re-echoing what my hon. Friend the Member for Middles-

brough, West (Dr. Bray) said earlier. One of the main charges against the Government is that they have known that industries are going to contract but have singularly failed to do anything about it in advance. In the winter of 1959–60 we were debating the Local Employment Measure, and the Minister said that he wanted power to do certain things when unemployment was imminent. We all wondered what he meant by that. We have never seen any examples. Indeed, under the Local Employment Act we have seen Ministers tumbling over themselves to deschedule areas because they thought that they had solved some local unemployment problems.
We have only to remember the case of Bathgate. When it was an area of high unemployment it was scheduled, but when B.M.C. set up its factory there it was promptly descheduled, and it was not long before the unemployment rates rose higher, because of the contraction of local industry. The Government did not realise that they had cut the throat of the shale industry in their Finance Bill, thereby throwing into unemployment thousands of miners. The charge against the Government is that although they convinced themselves that they have helped to solve basic problems, they did not do so. They have also failed to anticipate the contraction of traditional industries.
If the Minister of Transport were worth his salt he would be trying through N.E.D.C., to make an estimate of the optimum size of the shipping industry, and saying, to the President of the Board of Trade, "In my opinion we should have so many men in the shipbuilding industry in the next five years, and we should concentrate, in certain towns in the United Kingdom, in trying to solve the unemployment problem." He should also tell the Minister of Labour that in the shipbuilding towns a certain number of men will become redundant, and will have to be retrained.
It is another sad commentary upon the Government policy that they have only just woken up to the problem of retraining. The number of people to be retrained under the Industrial Training Act will be pitifully small compared with the size of the problem.

Mr. Proudfoot: Will the hon. Member say why? Will he give an example?

Dr. Mabon: I will give the hon. Member an example. In my own area we have had well over 2,000 people unemployed ever since the party opposite came to power. The Government have made no impression at all on the unemployment problem there. Despite the fact that people have been encouraged to find jobs elsewhere, and that there has been a net decrease in population in the last 12 years, owing to migration, the unemployment rate has not been kept down. At the moment it is 7·4 per cent. That has been the average since the Government resumed office in 1959. During their previous term of office the average was a mere 6 per cent. That represents about 2,500 men and women.
We are to have a training centre. We were told that it will be provided very soon and would be capable of retraining 100 people each year. So that it would take 26 years to retrain the unemployed, not counting those who will be unemployed in the future. This is the size of the Government's contribution. We had this announcement about the industrial training centre on 8th April last year. But not a single spade has been driven into the earth to start to build the foundations for the centre. It is almost a year now since that announcement was made. But when I asked the Minister what he intended to do, he was not even sure of the courses which he would introduce into the centre once it was constructed.
It is the same story about advance factories. I remember when hon. Members opposite were violently opposed to advance factories, and I could quote speeches to that effect which were made by hon. Members representing English constituencies and hon. Members—to their shame—who represent constituencies in Scotland. I could excuse the English Members, but not those from Scotland. From 1956, 1957 and 1958, hon. Members opposite were opposed to advance factories, and many sophisticated arguments were advanced, about why they should not be built. But in 1959 it was different. It is strange what happens at a General Election. The conversion of St. Paul on the road to

Damascus was no more rapid than that of a Tory Government at election-time.
We have been a long time building these factories. There is one being built in my constituency. We were refused such a factory until 1962, and then we were given one which will provide employment for about 20 men when it is in full swing. But we are grateful. We are always grateful for small mercies. This is the extent of Government activity. My constituency is similar to many others in different parts of the country.
I am told by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson), who has intimate knowledge of these affairs, that there is an impending closure of two plants operated by the International Computers and Tabulators in Northern Ireland. I am sorry to hear about that, because it will mean that about 1,200 people will lose their jobs. That is a much more serious and drastic situation than is faced in some constituencies in Scotland. I am told that on the Notice Paper of the Northern Ireland Parliament there is a Question to a Minister asking whether he is aware that a survey carried out in a certain district in Belfast revealed that male unemployment was at the rate of 48 per cent. That staggers me. It reminds me of the situation which obtained in Greenock in the 1920s and 1930s. I am sorry that the people in Northern Ireland should be in this position, and I hope that a new Government will be able to do more for them than is being done at present.
The problem in Northern Ireland is the same, with the exception that the rate of migration is not as high as in Scotland. I say that as a great-grandson of a Montgomery whose forebears went across to the plantation of Ulster and I say it is no unfriendly spirit. It is not a characteristic of Northern Ireland that the migration rate is high. I wish that it were not the characteristic of Scotland, and that we had kept our unemployed so that the percentage went higher and higher, to reveal the disgrace of this Government and exposed the clamant need for action.
I firm believe that it is not a proper argument—as we heard from the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder), who argued the case of pure


laissez faire—that industrialists ought to be able to put their factories where they wish. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South—

Mr. P. Williams: I did not say that.

Dr. Mabon: I agree, but the hon. Member for Belfast, South, said that all kinds of inducements and "carrots" could be provided, but in the last analysis industrialists should be allowed to settle where they wished. That is not the Government's policy.
The Government have a negative system of industrial direction. They can ban certain places by refusal to issue I.D.S.s. It is not laissez faire. Let us admit that the Conservatives are not Conservatives any more; they are in a sense "Conservatocialists". When hon. Members opposite ask if we are in favour of directing industry, they must concede that they have agreed that industry will not go to certain places. That is a big move forward from Tory philosophy.
The time is coming when we shall have to adopt new measures to solve the basic problems of unemployment and it will need a new Government to do this. I predict that in time the hon. Member for Sunderland, South—after his return to the House in a by-election for a safe Tory constituency—will claim that he was in sppport of this. He will do that when he re-enters this House.
When the new Government come into power they will have to establish undertakings in areas where private firms are unwilling to expand at present. When we get to the nub of the argument Ministers say of a specific example, "If we refuse this I.D.C. to this firm which wants to set up in the South-East, do you not see that they are so adamant that they will refuse to expand at all?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer has suggested in correspondence that when the interests of the nation are paramount an I.D.C. must be issued.
The cry then is, "If you do not like that, what would you do? Would you insist and not give an I.D.C.?" I say, in response to the Chancellor and other critics of this policy, that if it is in the national interest to expand the produc-

tion of a certain factory, or manufacturing plant, or industry, and the private firm is not willing to do it except in its own district, the Government should do it. They have the capital and could attract the technical and commercial staff to do so. They should set up the industry where it is needed and compete. Hon. Members opposite will cry out that this is unfair competition and that State capital is being used to compete with private capital.

Mr. Henry Clark: Groundnuts.

Dr. Mabon: The groundnuts case is "peanuts" compared with Blue Steel, Blue Streak, and all the other extravagances of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member had better be careful in talking about groundnuts, because he is interested in sugar beet. He had better not talk of other agricultural projects which have cost far more than the groundnut scheme. That is a boomerang argument.
When we have the acceptance of direct Government contracts it is not a far cry to the question of directing publicly-owned industry. Let me give an example. In health debates I have raised the question of the supply of disposable sterile syringes in an effort to reduce the incidence of jaundice and other diseases which are sometimes carried by ineffectively sterilised syringes. Although the Government have assured me that there is such a system in hospitals, I can find very few doctors who can get such facilities. I have been in correspondence with various hospital doctors and I shall raise this matter on another occasion.
If we are to supply large quantities of materials to the National Health Service, either for more widespread use of disposable sterile syringes or for drugs, why should we not do it from publicly-owned factories? It is done in Australia and other countries. There, the public service is sustained by public supplies. It is done by a number of local authorities in this country already. There is nothing wrong with this concept of public enterprise. It is high time that we thought about it as a new weapon in the fight against unemployment.
Hon. Members opposite have been converted over the years, step by step in a long and painful process, gradually


to agree with some of the views that I am expressing. After the next Labour Government I am sure that they would be willing to agree to employ the sort of solution I have described. They have already done it politically by swallowing something like nine of the 11 nationalised industries, because they have not denationalised all of them.
The Minister for Science said in a famous book on Conservatism, published in 1947, that no Government could undo everything done by the party in power previously. He agreed that the party in power must accept some of the things done by the previous Government, or Parliament would be on a complete merry-go-round. If we can institute during the next Labour Government the sort of solution that I have adduced I predict that hon. Members opposite, after attacking it at the beginning and putting up quite a fight, would find it a satisfactory and acceptable solution.

Mr. Dudley Williams: Would the firms in question be like British Railways; cut in half?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I do not think so. It is a good idea to have transport publicly owned. It has to a certain extent been misused by the party opposite, but the basic concept is good. Hon. Members opposite should not get me wrong. I am in favour of closing railway services if they do not pay and if the social and economic consequences of closing them are negligible. It is wrong to stick by all the Victorian patterns which were established by our forefathers. Modern Socialists are not Luddites or backward in their outlook. We are most anxious, as are the few progressively-minded hon. Members opposite, to accept change. I am sure that those who believe in Conservatism and still are forward-looking will agree with this judgment. I am willing to admit that some hon. Members opposite are empirical and are willing to alter their position. They have had to do so and they have managed to maintain office only by being prepared to adapt over the centuries and to change to prevailing circumstances.
Whatever may be said about the direction of labour or industry, hon. Members opposite must realise that I in my con-

stituency and other hon. Members who represent constituencies like mine are all the time seeing the direction of hundreds and thousands of people away from their homes and being forced to travel elsewhere. My part of the country is beautiful and my constituents are fine people. Although I have an old town it is gradually being developed and modernised. Why should these people be herded into the South, like Gadarene swine, down into this corner of the island? Why are we not spreading industry out into the whole of the United Kingdom? This Government is directing our people to this crowded, congested, overpopulated corner of Britain. If we must choose between directing people or industry I am in favour of directing industry.
I would direct industry through public ownership and negative controls which, as I have said, hon. Gentlemen opposite have already accepted. That is the only way of achieving employment stability. I wish that the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) were in his place, because I remember, as a Labour candidate, fighting his constituency. I was a medical student at the time and was terrified that I might be elected. I wanted to qualify first. I studied carefully all the difficulties that faced that constituency. The one thing that has amazed me in the intervening years is that unemployment has gone up so much in various parts to nearly four times what it was in 1951. I suppose that the electors there would have been better off had they elected a Labour Government and me at that time.
The argument of the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire is that there has been a delay of six months over the building of a factory and another twelve months' delay over helping Ardrossan dockyard. That was the sum total of his contribution towards solving the unemployment problems of Scotland. For everything else he suggested has long been written into Government legislation and in part at least practised by the Government. There was nothing original in his remarks and I regret that it was the only Conservative speech we have heard tonight from a Scottish hon. Member.
I suggest that since we are in the dying days of this Parliament it is high


time, with the hustings before us, that we heard something more practical from the benches opposite. We should be told what they intend to do in the years ahead if they are re-elected. However, they would be wasting words because we will win the election.

9.35 p.m.

Commander J. S. Kerans: Though the amount of unemployment in my constituency is not as high as that in Greenock, it is still 6·3 per cent. It has been as high as 12 per cent., and in 1959 it was 5·9 per cent. I have no shipyard—that disappeared a few years ago. We have had a number of debates on this subject, but the high average of unemployment in my constituency remains about the same.
One of the things necessary to put The Hartlepools on the map must be adequate communications. Not so long ago, when I asked, in a Question, what was proposed to be done for West Hartlepool I was rather shaken and surprised to hear that a decision was to be taken during the next year or two. That is not good enough, because natural communications with the A.1 road are vital if we are to attract industry to this area. Further, we want good air communications, and I hope that the project for taking over the Middleton St. George airfield, in April, can quickly be made workable and viable.
I am happy to say that a good many people in the constituency have made considerable efforts locally to bring in industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) is not present, but I can inform the House that he has, on his own initiative, with Government assistance, established a firm called Pitch Fibres which, it is hoped, will start operations next June. The trawling industry was about to disappear altogether when some local authorities got going on their own, and a second trawler is coming along quite well.
But it is the people on the spot who have done a good deal to get the image of Hartlepool, its attractiveness to trade and industry, brought to the public notice. The appointment of an industrial development officer by the local

authority has been well worth while, and the standard of advertising in newspapers in the South and elsewhere has been good, and has borne a good deal of fruit. The local industry committee of the council has also played its part very well.
As I have said before, if we are to attract industry to the area, we want more shopping facilities, more hotels—perhaps motels—and entertainment. What I find so galling is that every now and then the B.B.C.—sometimes I.T.V.—does a programme on the North or the North-East. I do not know what gets into it but on every occasion one sees the worst features of the area. That is damaging, and is a very bad influence on those in industry down here whom we are trying to attract to the area.
I should like to see the Remploy factory in my constituency extended by the Government so as to give more employment to handicapped men. I should also like to make a plea for the Post Office Savings Bank, which has been mentioned on both sides of the House, to be sent to us. I am quite certain that Tees-side offers considerable facilities for the Savings Bank. With the advent of improved communications in the future, the transfer would do a lot to help my constituents.
I asked, and hoped, that an industrial retraining centre should be brought to The Hartlepools. As we have an unemployment rate of 6·3 per cent. that did not seem an unreasonable request. Why the Government have to put the centre in Billingham I cannot understand. It does not make sense to me.
I should like to ask the Economic Secretary what developments will take place in the heart of The Hartlepools, where we have been awaiting a decision on coaling stages and nothing seems to have occurred. We want more deep-water approaches and considerably more dredging. It is not so long since ships had to be turned away from The Hartlepools to other ports because there were not sufficient berths alongside for loading timber.
I find it rather galling that The Hartlepools is mentioned only three times by name in the White Paper, but I accept that the White Paper refers to Teesside as a whole. The proposals in the


White Paper, however, will require a considerable time to be implemented and at the end of this month there will be a further number of school-leavers in the area who are bound to add to the unemployment figures. This sort of thing happens all the time. We never seem quite to catch up.
I am happy to say that the advance factory built in The Hartlepools has recently opened after being taken over by the Reed paper group. This is first-class. I ask the Economic Secretary to do what he can to persuade the Government to organise immediately the building of another advance factory. If there is a factory "in the pipeline" it is far more advantageous to people who are deciding whether or not to bring an industry into an area. Finally, it may be of interest to some hon. Members that the Labour Party, in 1950, produced a report on developments in the North-East but, by 1951, decided not to print it because the money had run out.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Ifor Davies: I intervene briefly to reinforce the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) for the publication as soon as possible of the plan which has been prepared for Wales. It has been said many times that South Wales in particular and Wales in general are now prosperous but I would draw the attention of the House to the statement made by the Minister for Welsh Affairs on 11th March last that despite the prosperity in parts of Wales there are still sharp individual problems. I want to refer particularly to some of these and I should like to draw the attention of the Economic Secretary to recent events which have indicated clearly how vulnerable is the boasted prosperity.
Local authorities in Wales—and this is a matter of some importance—are themselves making great efforts towards solving unemployment problems in their areas. I welcome very much the recognition of this fact in the recently published Report on Developments and Government Action in Wales and Monmouthshire. The Government have put on record in paragraph 83 of that Report their appreciation of what has been done by some of the local authorities. Reference is made, for example, to the efforts

made by the Milford Haven Urban District Council, and by the Pontardawe Rural District Council in the area which I have the honour to represent in the House. These are efforts which should be recognised and I associated myself with the Council in a one-day effort in the Midlands not long ago.
I ask the Economic Secretary to consider a speech made in another place by the noble Lord Lord Eccles on 28th November, 1962. His comments are of some significance in relation to local authorities. The noble Lord said:
The first and obvious duty of the public authorities is to provide in advance the basic services which industry will require—power, transport, water, housing, education and so on. I would put forward a very special plea for the clearance of derelict sites and of those other evidences of decay which I know, from experience at the Board of Trade, so discourage a firm from going in for the first time to one of the old industrial areas."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 28th November, 1962; Vol. 244, c. 1239.]
This is a very significant comment.
Britain today is allowing its area of derelict land to increase at the rate of 4,000 acres a year. Already we have more than 150,000 acres out of use because of spoliation and neglect. A country with such limited land resources should regard it as a national duty to make the best use of what land is now available and, indeed, to reclaim what has been left derelict.
In Wales there are 2,800 different sites, comprising a total of approximately 20,000 acres of land, which are derelict. This is land which has been used and laid waste and is now unsuitable as it stands for further use. I agree that modern industry in parts of industrial Wales is creating a new image, but the slag heaps and the ruins of the old and long-since dead industries should not be allowed to dilute it.
For example, in the lower Swansea Valley there is the largest area of industrial dereliction in the United Kingdom. I refer to an area where there are 800 acres which could provide excellent industrial sites. In view of this depressing site, I often wonder how many visiting industrialists with ideas of development in this area turn away and catch the next train back to London, or the Midlands, or wherever they come from.
This derelict area is an offence to the civic conscience. Many efforts have already been made to get something done. The site has remained an ugly reality simply because the cost is too great for the local authority itself to do anything about it. However. I am glad to say that, despite these difficulties, a bold experiment has been started. It is the first experiment of its kind in this country. It has been given the title, "The Lower Swansea Valley Project". This is a combined effort by the University, the Nuffield Trust, the D.S.I.R. and the local council. It is not a mere academic exercise. It is a genuine effort to provide a take-off for action by the local authority and the Government.
What can the Government do to help? Is it possible to do anything to help? I make this very serious suggestion. It has already been brought up but it has not been favourably received. I want tonight to reinforce the argument. There is provision in the Local Employment Act for help for the clearance of derelict sites. Yet this area, the worst in the country, can get no support at all, for the very simple reason that the area is not within the bounds of a development district.
Arising from that I want to mention a recent development which has taken place. As the House knows, the closure of the Pressed Steel Factory employing 1,500 people has been announced. The unemployment figure for the Swansea area and the Swansea Valley is over 3 per cent. at the moment.
The suggestion I put to the Minister—it was mentioned by Lord Eccles in calling for new thinking about development districts—is that the lower part of the Swansea Valley should be scheduled also as a development district. The top of the valley is scheduled. The centre has been put on the stop list. Will the Minister schedule the lower part of the Swansea Valley, comprising the Morriston and Swansea employment exchange areas, and give it the whole district the title of the Swansea Valley Development District? There is a case for doing this even on the percentage of unemployment, which, of course, is the Government's criterion in deciding on designations. The unemployment resulting from the redundan-

cies at the Pressed Steel factory will bring the percentage from 3 per cent. up to 5 per cent. for the Swansea District which comprises also the Valley in Ministry statistics.
I do not put my suggestion from any narrow point of view. I advance it having regard to the very serious situation in the town and Valley. I urge him to designate the whole of the Swansea Valley as a development district not only because of the unemployment figures themselves but also because of the great help which could then be forthcoming in the clearance of derelict sites. I urge the Minister not to close his mind to this possibility, and I am reinforced in my plea in the knowledge that the Welsh Board for Industry had decided to support it even before the pending closure of the Pressed Steel factory was recently announced. The Act provides that help should be given not only where there is unemployment now but where there is unemployment expected. The whole of the area has done everything to help itself so far. Because of statistical difficulties, the Government have excused themselves. Now, having regard to the new arguments I have put, I ask the Minister to give the whole matter fresh thought.

9.52 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Like the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. I. Davies), I represent an area which has recently experienced a reverse in its employment prospects. Only yesterday, the Minister of Aviation announced that an order for helicopters, which we were very anxious should go to Short Bros. of Northern Ireland, was not to come our way. In following the hon. Gentleman, I wish to emphasise the special needs of the area which I represent.
The rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland has been showing a slight improvement over the past year. The latest figures which we have relate to February this year. A year ago, unemployment in Northern Ireland was 9 per cent., and it is now down to 8 per cent., a very welcome improvement. Nevertheless, there remains in Northern Ireland a rate of unemployment about four times greater than the national average of 2 per cent.
We have our special problems. First, there is the obvious physical disadvantage


of the Irish Sea. Raw materials have to be imported specially into Northern Ireland and all our manufactured goods and finished products have to be exported to Britain or other parts of the world.
I address a special comment to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, who takes a deep interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland and who has often helped us in the past. I believe that Belfast is not a recognised port and, therefore, any goods which we export abroad must first be shipped from Belfast to Liverpool and then transferred to other vessels and sent abroad, thus incurring higher freight charges than would be incurred if they were shipped direct from Belfast. I believe that this is a result of Shipping Conference rules which prevent goods being shipped direct from Belfast.
I should like my hon. Friend to take up this matter with his colleagues in the Government, because I was told recently by a manufacturer in Belfast that, even if he could arrange for a vessel to bring in raw materials to Northern Ireland and immediately to load exports for return to the same part of the world from which the raw materials came, the Shipping Conference has prevented him from doing this. This adds quite a substantial amount to the freight charge per ton and places Northern Ireland at some disadvantage.
The Northern Ireland Government, with the backing of Her Majesty's Government, have been seeking strenuously since the war to diversify our industry. We have received a great deal of help from Her Majesty's Government, particularly from the Treasury. We have been successful in attracting about 160 new industries to Northern Ireland in this period, and more than half our working force is employed in these new factories set up since the war. This is a very creditable effort, but, in spite of it, unemployment still remains at a serious and uncomfortably high level.
We have the prospect of creating another 6,000 jobs in the next 12 months and we hope, perhaps, to double the number during the subsequent year. But this still leaves us with a rate of unemployment much above the national average. The reason is that it appears that every one step which we take for-

ward we slip back two. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) has referred to the run-down in our traditional industries, particularly the ship building industry in my constituency and the linen industry. One of the oldest linen mills in Northern Ireland, the York Street Linen Mills, which is within my constituency, has been forced to close down because of changes in fashion and taste. This mill, which was modernised after the war, was forced to close down about two years ago.
This type of run-down in traditional industries which is caused, on the one hand, by changes in fashion and, on the other, by modernisation and more mechanisation such as that which has been taking place in the shipyard, along with a fall in the demand for new ships which has to some extent been halted by the Government credit scheme—but it might occur again—has caused the level of unemployment in Northern Ireland to remain dramatically high.
There has been quite a move from the land into the towns, and this has created specially difficult problems because people displaced from agriculture are unskilled. There is a problem, which has been referred to in this debate, of training this unskilled labour, because even in Northern Ireland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South pointed out at some length, there is a severe shortage of men in certain skilled trades.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to give particular attention to these problems and to the problem of our shipbuilding industry. In the past, the Board of Trade has greatly helped the British shipbuilding industry by awarding substantial credit to it, by guaranteeing exports through the E.C.G.D. system and by making available special credit terms for the sale of large single capital items, such as ships. This has helped the British industry to win export orders. I am not satisfied, however, that we are always able to compete with overseas yards.
I think particularly of certain facts which have been drawn to my attention concerning Japanese yards. I am told that in certain cases they can, with


Government credit and export guarantee assistance, offer better credit terms and lower interest rates than British yards can offer with the help of the Board of Trade. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to give special attention to the question of credit for British shipbuilding.
I ask my hon. Friend also to look favourably upon a renewal of the Shipbuilding Credit Act when it expires in less than a year's time. Under this Measure, £75 million has been made available to British shipowners who place orders for British ships to get specially favourable credit terms so that they are put on roughly the same footing as a foreign shipowner ordering shipping tonnage in British yards. We have, however, been told that this assistance will not be renewed. If that is so, much of the help which our yards have been given and much of the money which has been invested by the Government in their modernisation schemes will be lost.
I should like my hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench to reconsider the Government's decision on this item. For the help both of the Belfast yards and of other yards, could not this assistance be extended to the repair, refit and modernisation of ships? There are a number of yards, including Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, which devote a lot of work to the refitting and modernisation of boats. It is anomalous that British shipowners who bring passenger liners and other vessels to be refitted have to pay higher interest rates on money which they borrow for this purpose than a foreign shipowner would have to do if he brought the same work to a British yard. In considering this point, my hon. Friend should remember that British shipowners may receive more favourable terms if they have their boats refitted and repaired in certain Continental yards. This is not helpful to our shipbuilding industry, on which so much employment depends.
I speak with great feeling, because since I came to the House of Commons I have seen a dramatic rundown in the numbers employed in many shipbuilding yards. When I entered the House in 1959, about 24,000 people were employed by Harland and Wolff. This number has been reduced to about

11,000, which means that 13,000 men in Belfast have been made redundant. Many of them are older men who find it difficult to adapt themselves to new skills and who, because of family commitments and because they have lived most of their lives in Belfast, are not mobile and cannot go abroad or even come over to Britain to find similar jobs.
The hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) talked about the Labour Party's schemes to meet problems such as these. He indicated that the Labour Party would be prepared to direct industry to areas such as Northern Ireland. The next step, which the hon. Member seemed to be afraid to take, if the Labour Party came into power would be to direct people. If direction of industry does not work, what does the Socialist Party then advise?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The hon. Member most uncharacteristically does me a grave injustice. I said that if we had to choose between directing people and directing industry, we would direct industry. I said that we should direct publicly-owned industry.

Mr. McMaster: I recollect the hon. Member saying that, but I was going on one beyond it. If direction of industry does not work, what is the next step? I suggest that it would be quite consonant with Socialist philosophy to go on and direct labour.

Dr. Mabon: No.

Mr. McMaster: I turn to another problem which affects my constituency. I have just outside the borders of my constituency three factories at Castlereagh which are occupied by International Computers and Tabulators Ltd. It has recently been announced that two of these modern factories are to be closed. I am told that the men there have been trained to construct peripheral machinery for computers. There is a great demand for computers, a demand which is growing all the time, and I believe that many such computers are now imported from the United States.
I ask the Minister of State to look into the problem. It is of vital concern to areas such as Northern Ireland that these men, some of the most highly skilled men in the country, men skilled


in delicate electronic engineering, should be given every encouragement to develop their skills, and to design their own computer, the modern contact computer, the Mark III or Stage 3 computer, which requires no peripheral instruments or machinery attached to it. They should be allowed to design the computer in Britain and assemble it in Britain.
I mentioned just now the problem of shipping and shipbuilding. The United States has adopted very many practices in shipping and shipbuilding which are detrimental to British interests. Here is one way of bringing some force to bear on the United States. If it will not agree to abandon its practices of flag discrimination and flag reservation, we might well take some steps against it such as limiting the imports of these computers, and that would, on the one hand, assist our electronic industry and, on the other hand, help convince the United States that if it wants other nations to play fair with it and trade with it, it will have to abandon its restrictive practices.
I believe that the rules of order do not allow me to speak twice during the debate. I had hoped to enter into a later part of the debate when the firm of Short Brothers and Harland will come up for special mention by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills). Because the rules of order will not allow be to speak again, I should like to address a few remarks to the House at this stage on part of the problem as it affects my constituency interests. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North will deal particularly with the contract for the transport aircraft, the HS.681, and so I intend to say nothing about that. I hope that, when he replies, the Minister of Aviation will deal with this point and also with the points which I now raise. I trust that some of my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench will convey my ideas and thoughts to the Minister of Aviation so that he may consider them when replying to the later debate.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I think it is possible that, by leave of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) may be able to join in the debate somewhat later when the Minister of Aviation is here.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that would be possible within the rules of order.

Mr. McMaster: I must accept your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I shall confine myself to the remarks which I had intended to make in that debate. I propose to say a few words about that now. The firm of Short Bros. and Harland, which is in my constituency, has frequently been assured by the Government that they will retain there a balanced production unit. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation said on 5th March, 1963, that employment for a production labour force not far below about 6,000 would be retained until 1970.
At that time I drew my right hon. Friend's attention to the need for further production work at Shorts. The firm has been given certain sub-contract work not only on the medium range tactical freighter but also on the VC.10, and I hope that he will consider whether further VC.10 work cannot be given to Shorts. There is the problem which I have raised recently, of the Shackleton replacement, and I feel that the proposal put forward by Vickers for a developed version of the VC.10 for this purpose might well meet the approval of the Ministry of Aviation and of the Defence Department. If additional VC.10s were ordered for the maritime reconnaissance rôle, part of the production work might well be placed with Shorts.
Having recently had the pleasure of flying in a VC.10 to Khartoum and back, I am convinced that this aircraft will probably be sold in very large numbers to operators who find that their ageing Boeing and Douglas aircraft do not meet the demands of the public and pending the introduction of supersonic aircraft, which might not be until the mid-1970s.
It might well be economic for a second production line of VC.10s to be laid down in Belfast. At the moment, nose and tail units are being made there, but this is not such a practical idea as producing the whole aircraft. The Government have announced that they are spending an extra £2½ million on sub-contract work with Shorts and that it is uneconomic to make such large


single units as tails and noses to be carried to Weybridge or elsewhere for assembly with the rest of the aircraft.
I should like my right hon. Friend to consider whether further work on the VC.10s could not, therefore, be awarded to Belfast. We have been told that if further work is not sent there there will be a serious run down in the work force.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Perhaps my hon. Friend could also deal with the point about the HS.651. It would save the time of the House later.

Mr. Willey: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is this not an abuse of procedure? We arrange these subjects for the convenience of hon. Members. No one objected to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) referring to this subject, but now he is stealing a march on his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) and making a major speech to a Minister who is not here.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is usual to comply with the arrangements that have been made through the usual channels, but a point of order does not arise on it.

Mr. McMaster: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was affected in my judgment by the fact that I had hoped to make two speeches, one now and one later, and on being told I could not do that I felt that, the only way to get round the difficulty was to mention that point now. Perhaps I had better leave that to be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North. I have mentioned one subject which I agreed with my hon. Friend I should deal with, and later I shall deal with the Belfast aircraft and the jet version of the Belfast for which we hope to receive orders.
I propose now to deal with the question of local employment. In addition to the points that I have made about shipbuilding and aircraft, there are certain things which the Government can do to help Northern Ireland to deal with this problem of an unemployment figure of 8 per cent. First, they should take further steps to increase public investment in Northern Ireland. The

Government in Northern Ireland, with the approval of the Treasury, have recently announced that a new road scheme is to be undertaken in Northern Ireland and that a large sum of public money is to be spent on it.
Public money is being invested in the North-East and in Scotland, and I consider that Northern Ireland deserves similar treatment. If Northern Ireland is to overcome the employment difficulties which I mentioned earlier she needs not only a better road system, but also improved hospital facilities, better schools, and perhaps one or two new colleges of advanced technology—this was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South—because it is a lack of trained skilled labour which sometimes acts as a brake on industrial expansion in Northern Ireland.
I also think that as a matter of public policy certain items of defence expenditure should be directed to Northern Ireland. If there is a small difference in the price quoted for, say, assault vessels, or helicopters, or any such item, when an order is being place for those items attention should be paid to the social factors involved. Instead of the work being given to a factory in the South-East where there is a shortage of skilled labour, it should be given to areas where employment is definitely needed.
It is in concerns such as Imperial Computers and Tabulators and Short Bros. and Harland that we have our most skilled and highly trained labour. The apprenticeship schemes undertaken by those organisations have done a great deal to assist industrial development in Northern Ireland. I therefore consider that assistance should be given to them, and that care should be taken not to hinder them in any way. If they are given assistance, we hope that in a very short space of time, certainly within the life of the next Parliament, we shall be able to bring the unemployment figure down to much nearer the national average, and at the same time raise the standard of living so that we become less of a drain on social service funds, because it must be remembered that a rate of unemployment of between 7 and 9 per cent. represents a considerable


drain on National Assistance and similar funds.
At the same time, we do not provide as high a contribution to the national income as we might otherwise, and our export effort and tax revenue could be greater. The Government could well

afford to invest a little more money in Northern Ireland. Such an investment would bring about a tremendous improvement, and would create a dramatic change in conditions in Northern Ireland, at the same time bringing a substantial return to the Government.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I was rather surprised to hear the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) for referring to the direction of industry, because this evening he has defended an industry in Northern Ireland and has asked the Government to place orders in that industry, although it was directed there by a Coalition Government during the war, from Kingston-upon-Thames and Rochester. I am surprised that he should object to any Government's directing industry.
I see no objection, in certain circumstances and in certain emergencies, to a Government's directing an industry from one area to another. This is much better than directing people from one area to another, where there may not be enough houses or transport facilities. It is much better to direct industry and commercial activity into areas where there is unemployment.

Mr. McMaster: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to mislead the House. The first branch factory of Short Bros. was set up in Belfast in 1938. It is true that its main factory in Rochester was closed down later and its entire works directed to Northern Ireland, but in the first place it built in Northern Ireland of its own free will.

Mr. Bence: The point that I made was that a factory was directed to move from Kingston-upon-Thames and Rochester to Northern Ireland. I know, because I had something to do with manufacturing the jigs and fixtures for the Northern Ireland factory. I knew that it was directed to Northern Ireland.
We have had many long speeches, and I shall try to be brief. I do not know how inept the Government can become. They are getting more stupid as the days go by, and their latest publication is about the biggest affront to the people of Scotland that any Government have been guilty of in the last 50 years.
Last autumn we had a White Paper on the Development of Central Scotland.

It explained that this area needed development. There was heavy unemployment, and the railway system was not used to the exent that it should be. Dr. Beeching therefore made proposals to close it down. Now we have another document from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Ever since the Barlow Report we have been asking for a policy of redistribution. The population density in the South-East is too high for industrial efficiency and the general social well-being of the population, whereas industrial activity and the population density in the North is lower than it could be.
I have no doubt that the Government will accept this Report. They are accepting similar documents at the rate of about one a month. No matter how much they cost, the Government will accept them. I do not know how much this will cost, taken together with the Buchanan Report, and adding the two together to the Robbins Report. Anyway, we now have another one, and the Prime Minister will no doubt accept it. But the Report suggests there should be a redistribution of the excessive population of London and the South-East wholly within the area of London, the South-East and the South-West.
In the document there is reference to the planned capital development of three new cities and other growth towns in the South-East and part of the South-West down as far as Portsmouth. It is not only to accommodate the assumed increase in population up to 1981 but a further migration. It provides for a further migration into the area from Wales, the North-East and Scotland. At one time we have a document to provide for the migration of the population from Wales, from the North-East, the North-West and Scotland, and then we have a White Paper proposing development in Scotland, the North-East, Northern Ireland and the North-West to keep the population there. Which policy will be successful? Will this document be circulated in Glasgow? If it is, the people of Glasgow will be wondering what the Prime Minister was talking about when he spoke in Glasgow.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton (Darlington): Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that this survey gave way to the surveys


for Scotland and the North-East which took priority and were published first?

Mr. Bence: The timing of the publication of the document does not alter the anachronism of a document proposed for the South-East following documents to provide for investment in those other areas to keep the population there.

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend will agree that the document dealing with the South-East is voluminous and expensive, showing that a considerable amount of care was exercised over a considerable period to undertake an inquiry into the subject. The documents for the North-East and Scotland are scrappy pamphlets which give no details whatever. Surely the contrast in the two documents brings out the idea of the two nations with which we are dealing.

Mr. Bence: My hon Friend is quite right. The document dealing with redevelopment in the South-East is a glossy magazine. I do not object to the redevelopment of the South-East. But there are proposals to create such an expansion of development as to provide for an increasing movement of population from areas of the country—(HON. MEMBERS "No."] It says 3½ million by 1981. It gives a natural increase of over 2 million by 1981 and movement into the area of 3½ million.

Mr. P. Williams: I agree that that is in the document. But the hon. Gentleman will recognise that this is a study based on what is likely to happen. It does not mean that the Government will not provide a counter-magnet. Of course they will. But in a study of this nature they have to recognise that a certain inflow is bound to take place.

Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman has made the final point. This document is issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The Minister looks at the policies of the Government for the North-East and for Scotland and he says, "This White Paper for the central development of Scotland, and the proposals for the North-East and the North-West, will not work. These policies will not keep the population in those places. I am convinced that people will come here, and so in our plan we will make Provision for when they come, 3½

million of them." So the Minister has no faith—

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward du Cann): The hon. Gentleman has twice made the same inadvertent mistake, and perhaps it would help if I corrected him. He is saying that 3½ million people will come. That is not so. The total growth is part immigration and part natural.

Mr. Bence: I am sorry. As I read it, I understood that was the expected migration into the area. But I will accept that it is not. It does not affect my argument. We have proposals to increase economic activity in Scotland and the North-East. These are proposals from the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development—and all the rest of it: such a string of titles I cannot remember them all. He has a set of proposals. They have been operating for some time.
We have had the Distribution of of Industry Act, the Local Employment Act, all sorts of measures, fiscal policies and Acts, to keep the populations in those areas and to increase economic activity in those areas to get people to move up there from the South. I have been asked, other Scottish Members have been asked, by the President of the Board of Trade to try to convince executives down here what a beautiful part of the United Kingdom Scotland is, because he wants to get executives to go up there. While the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Labour are pursuing all these policies for Scotland and the North-East, the English Minister of Housing and Local Government issues a document about accommodation for people who are going to move down here, and so I say he has no faith in his fellow Ministers.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I really think that when the hon. Gentleman has had more time than he or I have had to read this document thoroughly he will find that it is not a document, as the North-East and Scottish ones were, for expanding and attracting industry, but proposals for making people already in this area more comfortable and so for the region to work more efficiently for the people who will inevitably be there. It is a totally different problem approached in a different way.

Mr. Bence: It is surprising how shallowly some people handle these propositions. They think of people in industry at the point of production. Fewer and fewer men for an ever increasing rate of production are required. When we talk of people functioning and working in the context of a civilised society, we have to get away from the idea that the only way we can employ people is to put them at the point of production, because the productive engineer and the technologist before long will enable a multitude of things to be produced without labour at the point of production. This talk of three new cities down here and increasing amenities down here misses the point that we are progressively taking people away from the point of production.
What we need in Scotland, though, is something like this, and not only productive industry employing a few people. No matter about the South-East, this is what we want in Scotland. We want new towns, new social amenities. We want a couple of new universities. My hon Friend the Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson) wants a health research organisation. This is the sort of thing we want in Scotland, as well as a few factories, because all these things generate employment, and they generate social function.
Bless my soul, if all we can think of is in terms of employing the mass of our people in producing things, we shall be a very poor society indeed. We ought to think of employing the large mass of our people in rendering services to one another—as is done in London. The number of people employed at the point of production in London is infinitesimal. I think it is disgraceful that we in Scotland should have to suffer the indignity of being palmed off by the Prime Minister and other Ministers with a White Paper telling us what they will do to keep the present population in Scotland and to bring people back to Scotland while at the same time they issue a thing like this glossy survey about the South-East about providing for people who are to move from Scotland.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot: I am glad in one way to follow the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), but rather disappointed in an-

other way, because I cannot answer his last points on the Study. I happen to be Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Local Government. I was delighted, though, that he had the glossy magazine, because my division produces the "glossy" for the glossy magazines, and they make work for people in my constituency.
I wish I had been called a little earlier—about two speakers ago—when I should have followed two doctors and a commander, and I thought I was going to be in really high society to answer some of the points.

Mr. P. Williams: Oh, but my hon. Friend is.

Mr. Proudfoot: Listening to the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), I was amazed at his idea about industry, and I cannot for one moment accept that that would work as a practical solution in a modern-day industrial country. In studying reasons for locating industry we must give industrialists a certain amount of freedom if we refuse them permission to go to over-crowded areas. The product and the raw material used decide to a large degree where the industry must be located. If the end product is bulky it must be near the market. If the raw material is heavy, the production will be near the source of the raw material. A perfect example is in modern steel works where they are located near the coast and indeed they are called coastal steelworks. No amount of Socialism can get away from these facts.
The hon. Member said that these industries should be publicly-owned, nationalised. Once an industry is nationalised, a Government of no matter what complexion is virtually bound to protect it by all methods that can be used, by tariffs and price controls.

Mr. Bence: Short and Harland, S. G. Brown?

Mr. Lawson: Is this what the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot) is concerned should be done with the shops of which he is proprietor?

Mr. Proudfoot: I did not get that. Does the hon. Member think that I want fixed prices?

Mr. Lawson: Is the hon. Member one who wants to retain price regulation?

Mr. Proudfoot: I even use those rarities—loss leaders. I believe in the most vigorous competition. I made a speech two years ago saying that resale price maintenance should go and that we should tackle monopolies and mergers. I am delighted that the Government are doing exactly what I suggested. I could not be more pleased.
Take, for instance, the coal industry. We see how the Government have to protect a nationalised industry. In my opinion that is perfectly right on humanitarian grounds. I have always lived in the North-East. The fuel tax on oil protects coal. In my constituency £7 10s. a ton has been put on the price of steel. This has not helped to make it competitive with concrete. When there is a nationalised industry, a Government of any complexion is bound to protect it. This is impossible in the modern world. It is like saying, "Stop the world, we all want to get off."

Mr. Bence: The hon. Member cannot be allowed to get away with what he said about the price of steel. The price of all classes of steel is fixed by the Steel Board, which is at the head of the private sector of the industry.

Mr. Proudfoot: I accept that, and if a hole is drilled in it the control no longer applies, and the control price accounts for the oil tax.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) is a scientist and he always manages to blind himself by science. His idea of what the Government should do in market research was incredibly vague. The Government's market research in the form of reports is all there for all to see. I was amazed that the hon. Member had not read the Report of the N.E.D.C. He should turn to paragraph 139 on page 23. Then he would see where new jobs will come with a growth rate of 4 per cent. If we have growth people with vigour and energy will benefit from that growth. This is interesting when we consider Tees-side and the North-East. The greatest number of jobs will go into service industries. In a total of 17 industries there will be 383,000 jobs, of

which 248,000 will be in service, 220,000 in distribution and 28,000 in postal services and telecommunications. This is the kind of era we are going into. More and more service workers will help.
In the index to the Report one sees that the N.E.D.C. and the Government have done their homework on growth, where it will come and in what industries, where the growth of jobs will come. We in the North-East must recognise that some of our older industries are becoming obsolete. Once all the coal has been removed from a mine that s the end of the mine.
Although one can refer to the great steel industry, its enormous development and the modernisation that has gone into it, we must also accept that there occurred a series of events which made life difficult for that industry. The nationalised Coal Board had, by correct social policy, to run down its number of workers. The shipping world was doing less business. All that reflected back onto the steel works and one can understand the reason for the recession in the steel industry. The director of "Neddy" was director of the Iron and Steel Board. Under the guidance of the Board there has been some really first-class planning.
In any case, nobody can guess just what the consumer will want from one year to the next. Fashions change, and whether the planners are nationalised or not the changing fads of the consumer will never be completely worked out by the planners. However, if private enterprise planners are doing the guessing they will stand more chance of success because their operations can be manoeuvred more quickly particularly since they are not protected by the Government as are the nationalised industries.
I must raise not a constituency but a Tees-side point after weeks of lobbying and letter writing. I appeal for the new Post Office savings bank to be located on Tees-side. I believe that it should be sited South of the Tees for many reasons, the main one being that in the whole of Tees-side it will complement the Hailsham Report. We on Tees-side have always had a history of heavy industry and the 7,500 jobs which we hope will eventually come to the area


will be a great help if the savings bank is sited there because it would also provide employment for a number of women. Another reason for establishing it on Tees-side is that it would be within easy reach of East Cleveland, and Whitby would be only half an hour's car drive away.

Mr. Bourne-Arlon: I hope that my hon. Friend has not forgotten that the people concerned, the Post Office workers, have expressed the view that the most desirable part of the country to which they would wish to be directed is the part about which my hon. Friend is speaking.

Mr. Proudfoot: I am pleased that my hon. Friend raised that point. I have already been called the slickest salesman on Tees-side, and I wear that name with pride. I am only too delighted to "sell" my constituency to get more jobs and industries to the area. The Post Office workers have voted, by a vast majority, to go to Tees-side as opposed to Clyde-side and Merseyside. An article appeared in my local newspaper yesterday stating that there had been 1,500 volunteers wishing to come to Tees-side, but only 200 willing to go to the other two riversides.
I have been probably the luckiest hon. Member in the Ballot for Notices of Motions. I have succeeded in raising the questions of decimal coinage, monopolies and mergers and training. I am a great believer in the benefits of training. I am delighted that it has been a Conservative Government who have taken a keen interest in training legislation, although a considerable amount of criticism has come from the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West.
The Government gave money to the education authorities to help the two leading firms finance extra training there—Dorman Long and I.C.I. These two firms are excellent examples of modern enlightened private enterprise. Their factories are producing more trainees than the firms themselves can use, and that is ultimately to the good of the community.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West shakes his head, but let me tell him this. At one time I employed two boys in Scarborough as newsboys.

They both came to my division, and both of them became instrument fitters—excellent men at their jobs. They were trained at I.C.I. One of them is now in Rumania and the other is in London making instruments for oil refineries for export. Those boys got there because I.C.I. is training more chaps than the firm itself needs.
A third firm would have started a training scheme, but for one thing. I plead with the trade unions on the Teesside to attend their branch meetings and to vote for more training. That is where the true blockage lies. The trade unions put a restriction on the number of trainees they will accept. I have been told that over and over again. It is a tragic thought that a father who is a qualified craftsman may stop, unknowingly, even his own son from getting an apprenticeship, but that is the set-up.
I plead with the trade unions locally to adopt a more liberal attitude towards training. The big shortage in the North-East in the future will be in trained men——

Dr. Bray: The hon. Member has addressed the House on the same subject before, and I have challenged him in the Lobby to state a single shop on the Tees-side where a restrictive practice was adopted by a trade union in a modern trade—electricians, turners, fitters, and so on. He was not able to produce a single example. It is only in trades where there is redundancy and men in them are unemployed that anything of the sort happens, and in every case the restriction has been applied by the employer.

Mr. Proudfoot: I do not accept that statement. There is a split mind on this subject. The national trade union leaders all agree on the need for more training—everyone agrees on that—but when we get to the local level there is a restrictive attitude. The hon. Member mentioned the electricians; I think that they are a little more enlightened now than most of the craftsmen—they all welcome a greater number of apprenticeships. In all sincerity, I cannot at this moment quote a particular trade, but when I have gone round the training schools they have put this point to me and I am perfectly prepared to accept


their word. Within the next few days I shall produce examples for the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West.
Two main noises are coming from Tees-side. The noise from industry and business is optimistic and confident for the future; the other is a political, pessimistic noise. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West made some typical pessimistic noises tonight. Of course, his chances at the next General Election will be reduced if unemployment is cured, and he knows it. That is absolutely accurate.
I ask the hon. Member to be what he once accused me of being—a good salesman for the area. We cannot sell the area unless we talk about its advantages. My division is a huge growth point in the North-East. The numbers of my electors have increased by 10 per cent. since the last General Election, so my division is one of the really fabulous modern growth areas of the country. It is enormously exciting to pass these huge capital projects in chemicals and steel.
One of the things that most people do not know about is the new Teesport. It is on dead level ground. Here is a £3½ million project that hardly anyone knows, but it will be one of our major ports. The Harbours Bill, which is going through Parliament, earmarks Tees-side as one of the vast growth areas. If one goes to this port, one will be surprised by the sight. Motor cars from the Midlands are now exported from Tees-side. The Government gave £2 million in the last Budget to deepen the river. This was completely right.
In the same area there are several thousand acres of land which are to be reclaimed. It is absolutely flat and right for industrial development. Further back in the Cleveland hills will be a residential area situated on the edge of a National Park. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West said a short time ago that I.C.I. was embarrassed by the tax inducements to go to Tees-side. I do not think that for a moment. I am sure that my constituents are delighted by the Government's tax incentives to bring more jobs to Tees-side. These inducements are the greatest in the free world, and this should not be forgotten.

Dr. Bray: There was no question of anybody regretting incentives to employment on Tees-side. What people are anxious about are incentives to reduce employment due to an ill-conceived tax structure.

Mr. Proudfoot: I do not think that it is ill-conceived. The £10 million Shell refinery which is to come will provide jobs for many people. It is no use looking only at the process workers, as the hon. Member did, and thinking that that is the end. Every productive worker, like a front-line soldier, has hundreds of people behind him. They are employed in local government, in teaching, in distribution and all the other things that go to make our society.
The heavy end of the steel industry has been through a rough time. I hope that the Government will be able to speed the new regulations governing safety regulations against fire. The structural side of the industry is placed at a disadvantage because of the present amount of cladding that must be put round steel structures in modern buildings. A building made of steel clad with concrete must be capable under the regulations of standing for four hours in the event of fire. This is an awfully long time to provide for the occupants to get out. I am convinced that this requirement should be altered. If it were altered it would be of great benefit to people engaged in this sector of the steel industry.
I do not believe that the people in the steel industry want nationalisation. The Socialists at this point in time are trying to "sell" the nationalisation of steel on the ground of job security. One single fact can prevent its being sold to the steel workers and that is that job security in the modernised coal industry is no greater under nationalisation than it was under private enterprise. The problem that confronts us all as a society is that we must have retraining and proper redundancy schemes because we have to let modernisation flow in this country.
I should like to tell the House of the exciting story I came across in my Division recently. I was being shown round a steel works. I was shown a rolling mill. I was told, "We have just modernized it completely. Three chaps


used to look after it and now there is only one." A man took me into a little room which was about the size of the average bathroom. In it was a large electronic machine. Lights blinked all over it. I could not have figured it all out in a million years. I was shown punch cards which were being fed into it. The punched cards, about 9 ins. by 12 ins., had holes in them just about big enough for me to put my little finger in. Just as I was turning away, I noticed that several of the holes had been blanked off with "Sellotape". I asked the chap showing me round why this was, and he replied, "That is an interesting story. The chaps who operate the mill came in in their own time and decided that they could do without this or that operation and they blank off the holes. They can beat the machine".
I regard this as one of the most exciting stories in industry that I have ever come across, showing how modernisation is succeeding and is being accepted by the people who work in industry. It pleased me very much indeed.
A welcome should be given in the House to the survey which is to be carried out in Tees-side, at a cost of £300,000. I understand that the Government are footing half of the bill. This again is right for the growth of the area of Tees-side. We are determined to have things right in the area, and I am convinced that the plans which will emerge, with traffic "computerisation" and so on, will be first class. Once they have been devised, they can be modified as time goes on to keep pace with developments.
Roads are a factor of the greatest importance affecting employment in my constituency. Strange as it may seem, I have no trunk road in my constituency although there is a road which has been called a trunk road for the past 20 years. Technically speaking, however, it is not a trunk road. This is a bit of "North-East Irish". In fact, we in Cleveland need a better road system, and I am most disappointed by the county council's lack of appreciation of the enormous growth which has taken place on the south bank of the Tees.
The local roads must be improved. Of course, I welcome the South Tees-side

parkway, and I sincerely hope that a start will soon be made on it, but we must have the local roads right from Loftus through Brotton to Skelton into Guisborough and on to Middlesbrough. We have a great roads problem and something must be done about it. The other day, two officials who were in the north-eastern office of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government lost their lives on one of the stretches of road I am talking about. There are some crazy bends and right-angle turns on them, yet they pass through absolutely flat open land. The county council must really get cracking on these roads. In the past, it has always blamed the Government.
I have been to see the Minister of Transport several times about our road system. The county council decides the priorities for the next few years. The programmes then go to the Ministry, which says how much money is available—this will always be so under any Government—and then the Minister picks out of the top priority decided by the county council exactly what can happen. One of my local councillors was able to move one bridge up to the top of the list, and I am delighted to say that that bridge—Windsor Road railway bridge—was pulled down and rebuilt in a fortnight while one of the steel works was on holiday. It was a magnificent piece of engineering—almost an "instant" bridge, so to speak.
It is roads that we need. We want the road improved from Skelton to Redcar. Half of it is being done now. Then it will be possible for Skelton to grow so that it will become a living area virtually on the edge of the National Park and yet within easy reach of industry.
The other road which must be improved very soon is the road from Guisborough to Redcar. Guisborough's population has grown up by 46 per cent. in the last ten years, but the road is almost still the same. It has got a ridiculous corner at each end of it. I can recall four deaths occurring on it, and I assure the House that it is quite a terrifying sight to see the volume of traffic and people using it when the shift workers of I.C.I. are coming and going. There are dangerous sections of camber which have thrown people off the road.

Dr. Bray: indicated assent.

Mr. Proudfoot: I am glad to see the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West agreeing with me wholeheartedly on this.
We need that scheme to improve the A.19 to Tees port urgently. The port needs better access. I should not leave this aspect of the matter without mentioning the A.1085, which, in effect is the trunk road. It passes through a densely populated area of Grangetown. Councillors and representatives of the churches have written to me about this road. One councillor is waging a campaign to get it improved. I wish him luck. I sincerely hope that the county council will move everything that it can in order to improve this road and reduce the hazards to life in this area.
I want to say here and now that I am excited by the growth prospects on Tees-side. I think that the recommendations in the Hailsham Report are absolutely right, and let us not forget that the areas adjacent to this growth zone will benefit enormously. It will be like throwing a pebble into a pond; the ripples will grow and spread and one can foresee places like Whitby and Scarborough becoming the Brighton and Hoves of the North-East.
I think that the Government's plans are right and that they will prove to be seen to be so in the not distant future.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: We have had not only an interesting debate in which the general argument has been against the Government in terms of constituencies. I would remind the House of what my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) said about unemployment; that when we talk of unemployment we are talking of tragedy. This is an aggregation of family tragedies, not only for the people who are unemployed, but for the whole area in which there is unemployment.
We in the North-East are told repeatedly that we should help ourselves, but I believe that we have done everything that is possible to help ourselves and, if the Minister of State challenges that statement, I hope that he will do so tonight. This is essentially a question of the location of industry. If one looks at the ten industries which have grown most rapidly over the last ten

years, we find that in the country as a whole industry has increased by 23 per cent., but that in the North-East it has increased by 26 per cent. and that those industries which have advanced most rapidly are not sufficiently represented in the North-East.
As the Minister of State is about to reply, I put the issue to him simply and say to the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot) that the Government are not looking to the future. The then Minister of Labour gave an express pledge at the last election. When the Minister came to Sunderland he said that unemployment was a passing phase and that areas like Sunderland would find that the Government would tackle it at once, but that to tackle it demanded legislation. This was to be one of the main problems which the Government was to tackle. By legislation, it was to spread industry more widely and then the problem would be solved. But the Government have failed
I have quoted the right hon. Gentleman, but he was not alone in giving this undertaking. The Prime Minister gave it. He sad that unemployment was confined to particular areas and he also said that it was a passing phase, and I say that the hon. Member for Cleveland was hyprocritical when he faced the electorate.

Mr. Proudfoot: But one of the first pieces of legislation which this Government introduced was the Local Employment Act, and when it was found that it was insufficient for doing the job it was changed.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Member sticks to his political philosophy, but I will stick to mine. I said that there will be no change if a Conservative Government is returned The hon. Member for Cleveland will have to face his constituents and explain how his arguments are right. In Sunderland at the time of the last General Election there were about 5 per cent. fewer unemployed in conditions similar to those obtaining today. It was a general election boom. But, said the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister, that was a passing phase; it would be solved immediately, and to solve it legislation was needed.


The Government have had the legislation. They have not solved the problem, and they are accountable.
Today, in similar conditions, we have, not 5 per cent. unemployed, but 6 to 7 per cent. unemployed. In Hartlepool—the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) is no longer present—the condition was similar. At the last General Election, when the hon. and gallant Member was elected, there was 5 per cent. unemployed. Now, there is 6 to 7 per cent. unemployed. In the North-East as a whole, we had 3 per cent. unemployed then. Now we have 4 to 5 per cent. unemployed. The average unemployment in Sunderland last year was 8·6 per cent. This is the account which the hon. Member for Cleveland and his hon. Friends must give to the electorate. The problem has not been solved. A pledge was given—the election was fought upon it in the North-East—that our problem would be solved immediately. Hon. Members opposite said that we would endure this unemployment for a short term, and the electorate were woefully deceived.
I want to show how bad the position is. When we think of unemployment, we must relate it to jobs which are vacant.

Mr. Bourne-Anton: May I say how greatly the hon. Member encourages me by what he is saying? If he says that we shall be judged by the pledges that were made on whether the Government would introduce a Measure to stop widespread unemployment in areas where industries were running down, I made that pledge—it was the only pledge I made—and in my constituency my constituents see the fruit of that policy by many incoming industries. If this is all we are to be judged by, the hon. Member encourages me very much.

Mr. Willey: I will come to the hon. Member's constituency presently. The important thing was that an undertaking was given that unemployment was a passing phase. This was an issue at the election, because hon. Members opposite said that all that was needed was a little legislation and unemployment would have gone. This has not happened.
We have to deal not only with the scale of unemployment; we must relate it to

the jobs which are vacant. We still have 9 per cent. male unemployment in Sunderland. This applies generally throughout these industrial areas in the North-East. We have 23 unemployed people chasing every job. In the county as a whole, 20 unemployed men and women are chasing every vacancy. When we debated this problem in the summer two years ago, Crook was quoted as an illustration that 40 men were chasing every job. Today, there are 236 men chasing every vacancy.
The Minister of State, Board of Trade, knows what this means in terms of juvenile unemployment and to school leavers. Against this background, we are expected to migrate. The Minister of State is intelligent and knows that migration aggravates the problem and makes it worse. I have been studying the employment position in Sunderland. Half of those employed are in the service industries, the distributive trades, the construction industries and public utilities. If 1,000 people leave Sunderland, 1,000 people in Sunderland are put out of work.
The core of the problem is that over ten years, 80,000 people left the North-East. Eighty thousand people leaving the North-East creates unemployment virtually to the scale of 80,000. The first problem which the Minister must tackle is that we now have about 12,000 people leaving the North-East every year. The hon. Gentleman has either to stop the migration or provide employment for those who are put out of work by it. That is the first major problem.
The second is the problem of the heavy industries. Since the last General Election the coal mining industry has thrown up a redundancy of 12,000. No one has mentioned power stations. They are very relevant to this. We have had no satisfaction about the power stations. The hon. Member for Darlington can face his electorate on that.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: It was not an electorate pledge.

Mr. Willey: But the hon. Gentleman can face his electorate on that. He will be asked why he deceived the electorate in saying that this was a passing phase. So the Minister must say what his plans are—because we know that redundancy in coal mining will continue—to provide alternative employment.
In 1951 we were the greatest shipbuilding country in the world, as we had always been. We were dominant. We are not now. Is it a matter of national policy? Japan, which builds more than twice the tonnage that we build, is a shipbuilding country because it was national policy to be. West Germany is also above us in the table. Both countries are great shipbuilding countries because of national policy. They decided that this was the export business to get into, that it was great export business to export a ship. They deliberately went into it. They have displaced us. We are now third; and we are being overtaken by Sweden. We have 64,000 fewer men employed in the industry than when the present Government came into power. Is it national policy to contract British shipbuilding? We know exactly what steps Japan and West Germany took when they built up their shipbuilding, but apparently it was the policy of the Conservative Government to contract and reduce British shipbuilding.
Let us take the position more currently, last year. World output of shipbuilding increased. But British shipbuilding dropped very sharply. We can now, unfortunately, talk about the 30s. British shipbuilding output is now below that for 1938. What were the Government doing for British shipbuilding in 1938? We had a scrap-and-build programme then. We were aiding the industry.
What is the national policy of the Government towards shipbuilding? Take the position since the 1959 General Election. The industry has been reduced by one-third. Is this the policy? Even if it is said that it is not, it seems to be the policy, because the Government have intervened only to hold the industry at its current level. They watched it go down to a level below 1 million tons before they took any action. Is the attitude of the Government now that they will be content to hold the industry at this level? This is important. It particularly affects us in Sunderland.
We have done well out of the Government's scheme. The North-East has done well. We have 65 per cent. of the orders which have been provided. In Sunderland alone we have 45 per cent. But we have more than 1,000 shipyard workers

on the dole. Is that the Government's policy? Ten per cent. of our shipyard workers are unemployed. We have Short's shipyard closed down. If this is the Government's policy, and it appears to be, what are the Government going to do about alternative work? We have had migration. We have had what has happened to the coal industry. We know what is now happening to shipbuilding. What are the Government doing?
The Government are certainly not helping—and again this will be a political question at the General Election—for the shipbuilding areas are complaining about the price of steel and about the lack of commercial practices in the steel industry. The price of steel has run against British shipbuilding since denationalisation. I forecast in 1959 that if we got any redundancy in the steel industry, it would be carried by units which were too small and that this would determine the price. That is what has happened.
We know that on the North-East Coast 100,000 more jobs will be needed over the next few years. What are the Government planning to do about it? What has emerged from the debate is that they have not come to grips with the problem at all. In the last few weeks I have been engaged in debate on the application of science in industry. The same sort of situation applies in this case. We cannot get the Government to take effective action.
The Lord President of the Council is concerned with both science and with the North-East. He would say that it is easier to help industry if one is engaged on defence work but more difficult in industry if only the profit motive counts. But that is a problem that the Government will have to tackle. In 1961 and 1962 there was great public pressure on the Government to get something done for the North-East, Scotland and other areas. But the Report for 1962–63 published by the Board of Trade shows that the Government actually spent £8 million less on the North-East than in the previous year while the total number of jobs provided there was 500 less.
Obviously, there should have been some national planning and policy but the Government saw that there was an


upswing of private investment. Later, they did respond but they should have done so at the critical time. In 1962–63 the total amount of new factories, extensions and industrial development certificates provided for an extra 2,384,000 square feet of space, but this was only half the previous year's total.
The year 1962–63 was the critical year for the provision of more employment now, yet the provision made by the Government for the Northern region was half that of the previous year. Now the brake has been applied yet again. The Bank Rate has been raised, and that effects these development areas more than any others because of its brake on capital investment. Yet in Sunderland we have 6 per cent. unemployed. In other districts it is even higher.
I am not surprised that in the debate scarcely any reference has been made to the Hailsham Report. It was meagre. It was a record of what had happened. It was brought out in expectation of an autumn election last year. It was no guide to future policy. It has already been virtually forgotten. The idea was that there should be deliberate public service investment and discrimination in favour of the northern region. If that was Government policy then, how is it that investment by the Government on factories in 1962–63 was less than half of the previous year in the northern region?
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cleveland has left the Chamber, because he touched on a cardinal point. The interesting thing is that when we look at the Government's figures for increased public investment over the next few years we see that it is almost entirely accounted for by road construction. We know the facts of life. Did the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) expect the A.1, as a new motorway, to end at Darlington? That motorway has to be driven through the Counties of Durham and Northumberland, and that will account for almost all the increased expenditure on public investment in the Northern region over the next few years.
If the Government really wanted to help the North-East, why was not this done before? Why is it that our part

of the road is the last to be constructed? I agree that this will provide some employment in the area, but the Minister of Transport is in effect saying to the hon. Member for Darlington although that employment is being provided, 4,000 of his constituents will be put out of work because the railway workshops at Darlington are to be closed.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: It will be within the hon. Gentleman's knowledge that the new employment created by a succession the Government measures has done two things: it has provided employment for those declared redundant at the railway workshops, and it has provided employment for those declared redundant because of modernisation in existing firms. This new employment is being created not only by incoming firms, but by the expansion of, and extension to, existing firms.

Mr. Willey: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he ought to have made his speech during the debate.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: The hon. Gentleman mentioned my constituency.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Gentleman ought to have attended the debate.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: The hon. Gentleman mentioned my constituency, and I am entitled to put him right on his facts.

Mr. Willey: I am dealing with the Minister of Transport. I am dealing with the facts. I said that the Minister of Transport is providing employment by continuing the new motorway through the counties of Durham and Northumberland. I said that at the same time he is creating redundancy as great as the employment he is creating.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Other measures have been taken by the Government to deal with the situation.

Mr. Willey: I shall deal with the Government's other measures. That is what the hon. Gentleman said in 1959.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: What I then said would happen has happened.

Mr. Willey: It has not. We now have a higher rate of unemployment than we had before.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I have not; nor shall I.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Gentleman has. He need not get so anxious and nervous just because an election is in the offing.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I am greatly encouraged by the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Mr. Willey: I am dealing with public investment. I shall now deal with another subject in which the hon. Gentleman is interested—education. The cuts made in our school building programme have been more severe than those made in other areas. Why is that? We receive preference in the construction of minor works, but not in school building.
Let us consider the situation in education. We have two nations in this land. We have been talking about the South-East. If we consider the figures for children aged 15 who are receiving full-time education, or those between 15 and 18 who are receiving full-time education, we see that the figures for the South-East are double those for the North-East. That shows the educational disparity between the two areas.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: We have not had any cuts.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Gentleman must contain himself and not get so nervous.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: The hon. Gentleman is talking about my constituency.

Mr. Willey: I am talking about the number of children in full-time education.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: The hon. Gentleman said that we had had cuts.

Mr. Willey: Darlington has had cuts.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: No. We have had increases.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. I do not think that we can carry on like this. The hon. Member for Darlington may catch my eye later.

Mr. Willey: The position is that from an education point of view we are two nations. We in the North-East are much worse off than people in the South-East. The education opportunities in the South-East are twice what they are in the North-East. This means that we should get some discriminatory capital

investment in the North-East—but we have not got it. We have suffered just as bad cus as other regions, or even Worse cuts.
The question of training and retraining has been mentioned. This subject features in the Hailsham Report. What is the position? The Report talks about a substantial expansion. There are 700 places in all. We have been talking in terms of N.E.D.C. There are to be 100,000 new jobs. Pathetic! We have also been talking of school leavers. The Hailsham Report talks of the capacity of classes at Tursdale being doubled. We have provided 24 more places. This is pathetic. It does not begin to deal with the problem.
Reference has been made to derelict sites. Here I want to quote in full the Board of Trade Report. It says:
The Ministry of Housing and Local Government gave final approval during the year for one scheme for the tree-planting of a 2-acre site at an estimated gross cost of £155. Two other schemes estimated to cost £44,000 gross, covering 41 acres, were approved in principle after having been provisionally approved in previous years. Five other schemes, estimated to cost £47,000 gross and covering 92 acres, were provisionally approved. Twenty-six further schemes covering over 450 acres were under consideration at the end of the war.
That is pathetic. It is not making the North-East Coast as attractive an area to industry as the newer areas.
We spent less in 1962–63 than in the previous year on basic services. This is not getting to the heart of the problem of the North-East Coast and the development areas. We must have an end to "stop-go" The trouble is that we stop before the other areas stop, and we start much later. We have a very short period of activity. The Government talk of an unemployment rate of 6, 7 or 8 per cent. as prosperity, but this is not what they conveyed to the electorate in 1959.
We must plan intelligently in order to use our resources intelligently. This is not an argument about capitalism and socialism. Other capitalist countries can use their intelligence. It is time we did. But if we are to have a national plan we must also have regional plans. The hon. Member gave the impression that he did not believe in regional planning, but we must have it. The Hailsham Report referred to a single building at


Newcastle. We should be restoring the powers we had in 1951. The regional headquarters should be the power house for the region.
We must have an end of this Government, with their procrastination, indecision and delay. We must have action well in advance. I have dealt with the year 1962–63 because that is the year which affects employment this year. It was the failure of the Government to act in 1962–63 which was responsible for the present position. This procrastination is illustrated by the case of the Post Office Savings Bank, which has been mentioned. I have not the slightest doubt that this will come to the North-East, but it does not help the Government's image to have the point about procrastination raised.
I have mentioned two or three points. I do not want the Government to say that I have made no suggestions about what we should do. I congratulate the Government on what they are doing in providing Commonwealth aid, attached with strings to the use of surplus capacity here, but they have acted on far too small a scale. It needs to be done on a large scale; £15 million is not enough if we are to make any impact on the problems we have been discussing tonight. But this sort of aid is alien to Tory philosophy. The Minister of State is an intelligent member of the Administration, and I can appreciate his difficulties. We must be tough with our I.D.C. policy.
I was asked about industrial location and direction. This is the wrong approach. We should not be negative but positive in this matter. If industries are to be persuaded to go into the North-East, to Scotland and to the other development districts we must be positive and say that we will back those that go. Let us work in partnership. This is the same problem as that which arises in connection with bringing scientific research into industry. If private enterprise will not do it then public enterprise, or public and private enterprise working in partnership, will have to do it. The Government gave a specific pledge and undertaking that this was a short-term problem which would be settled within the lifetime of this Parliament. It is the failure of the

Government to settle that problem which will seal the fate of many of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends when the General Election comes.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton: I am most grateful at being allowed the opportunity to intervene, though it will be for only one moment. I wish, first, to apologise to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) if I appeared to be getting a little warm just now when he was discussing problems in my constituency. Secondly, I wish to correct one point which was left uncorrected when the hon. Gentleman was speaking. We have had very good building starts indeed in Darlington, but, like every other education authority anywhere in the country now and at any other time, in the entire list of orders of priority building not all have been accepted. Indeed, they never have under any Government at any time, and never will. But we have done pretty well on building starts.

11.31 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward du Cann): I am glad to have the opportunity enfin to wind up this debate, and I shall certainly do my best to answer the questions which were raised. I am not at all clear whether some of the hon. Gentlemen who asked them are necessarily interested in the answers. It may be that I am doing them an injustice. Certainly, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) have been good enough to explain to me their personal circumstances because of which they have had to leave London, and I entirely understand that it may be that the same applies to other people. I would not wish to do them the discourtesy of not ensuring, as far as I can, that the answers to their remarks are written into the record.
The first thing I should like to do is to quote something which the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) said, which was reinforced by the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). He said—I wrote it down at the time—that all of


us take this question seriously because of its human aspects. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North went on to say, in effect, that Britain cannot afford wasted resources. I would certainly agree with both those sentiments. Indeed, I thought that agreement with both those sentiments largely characterised all the speeches made during the course of this evening. I would only say this by way of addition, that this is a serious problem, and the very stories of individual locations, exceptional though they may be, cannot but be moving. I have never thought that these problems, wherever they exist in the United Kingdom, were capable of any easy solution, and I do not think they are now. I think it would be idle to pretend at any time that they are.
I turn to the question of aid, raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North, and to what he said about aid from surplus capacity. As I was at the Treasury at the time when this policy was formulated, I agree with him that it was a very good scheme indeed. I have no doctrinnaire objection to schemes of this sort. Indeed, I think they have already brought great benefit to many British industries. But there are problems. There is a limit, obviously to what we can afford, and that is really the only factor at present preventing us from doing more than we are doing.
I should like to endeavour to some extent, in winding up the debate, to put it into context. The matters I am now going to refer to, I wish to make it plain, in no way affect the point, which I accept, that certain areas have a serious and grievous problem.
The first point I wish to make is that at this time, more people are in employment in Britain than ever before. It is remarkable how the figures have risen. To take mid-1951, for example—one can pick any year, in general, over the last 20 years or so—the number of people employed in the United Kingdom was 23 million. In mid-1963, to get an approximate comparison, the figure was 24·65 million, a rise of nearly 2 million.
It is a commonplace to say that we live in an era of change. As the hon. Member for Sunderland, North and some of my hon. Friends who are now in the Chamber pointed out, we not only live in an era of change but in one

of rapid change and that this is something to which one has to become accustomed. Hon. Members were right in what they said about the importance of retraining. It is remarkable how the balance of employment is changing.
I was asked to say something about shipbuilding. Hon. Members will know of my prejudice on this subject for reasons with which I need not bore the House now. No doubt we are in difficulties over coal as new fuels come into existence. Although these fine old traditional industries of Britain may not be able to play quite the same dominant part in our economy as they played in the past, we are most anxious to see them play an important part in the future. We wish to see a strong, efficient and competitive shipbuilding industry. I was delighted to hear what the hon. Member for Sunderland, North said about the performance of the North-East in obtaining contracts. That seems a good indication of efficiency and augurs well for the future.
We have to face changes in employment. I was looking at an analysis of export figures only a few days ago and was struck by the fact, which is an illustration of what I am endeavouring to stress, that before the war only 5 per cent. of our sales abroad consisted of engineering goods. Today it is nearly half. That is an added indication that we live in a changing world. It is difficult at times to become accustomed to this change and to provide for it It is a matter for pride that the United Kingdom has as good or better a post-war record of maintaining full employment than any comparable industrial country. Comparisons are difficult for obvious reasons, but that should be a matter for pride.
Lastly, I refer to the general economic position, a point to which the hon. Member for Hamilton, who opened the debate, I thought so well and with such obvious feeling, drew attention. It is the essence of the Government's policy that not only does an expanding economy help the proper development of the regions, but the proper development of the regions makes it possible to sustain over all a higher level of activity in the national economy as a whole. It is very im-


portant at this time to have an expanding economy.
Reference was made by the hon. Member for Sunderland North and the hon. Member for Hamilton to the application of Bank rate. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South made a very good point when he said that we have to consider the development districts against the background of the economy as a whole. We need to sustain a soundly developed economy expanding at a rate which the United Kingdom can afford. While recognising the importance of avoiding stop-go policies, I do not believe that a cut back can have a serious effect in development districts or that the recent rise in Bank Rate is likely to have a great effect in development districts, if any at all. I will not go into detail unless the House wishes of the reasons advanced by the Radcliffe Report in 1959. The situation has changed very much since earlier stop-go days. Now we have the new incentives of free depreciation and investment allowances and so on which did not exist earlier and which seem to be a counter attraction of very great strength far outweighing any general economic cut back which might take place from time to time. Bearing in mind the need I have expressed to maintain the growth of the economy, I support the Chancellor in the action he has taken in time to maintain the rate of growth which happily exists at the moment.
I come to the Government's regional development policy objectives. The first is to bring about a more even spread of economic activity. The second is to maintain the individual and unique character of the regions, which I have always felt is one of the outstanding characteristics of this country. The third is to improve the quality of life in all its aspects throughout the country.
I was pleased to hear some rude remarks made about the word "infrastructure." It is, without doubt, a most appalling word and why we continue to talk American rather than English I cannot think. I said in Bristol the other day, and I have no hesitation in repeating, that I am sick of "documentation." I prefer "documents." I am sick of "transportation." What is the matter with "transport," and I positively re-

fuse to "meet up with" anybody—at their infrastructure or anywhere else.
A great deal has been said about the need to attend to the problem of making life convenient and pleasing in the regions, and this is one of the basic needs. Above all, what we must succeed in doing is to provide good and fair opportunities for those who live, work and, perhaps even more important, grow up in these areas. As hon. Members know, the Government have certain instruments for implementing these policies. We have regional development policies and our aim is to secure both immediate and long-term benefits. Our general approach in the short-term is to make full and constructive use of the Local Employment Acts to seek the results we require in achieving our objectives.
I will deal later with the latest position under the Local Employment Acts. I wish, first, to deal with regional points. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) questioned me about Northern Ireland. As they know, the development of the Northern Ireland economy is the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland, who offer favourable financial assistance to new industry. The Secretary of State has already informed my hon. Friends that we keep in close touch with them on the evolution of our development policy for the regions. In steering industry we give Northern Ireland the same high priority as the most needy development district in the United Kingdom. We shall certainly continue to do what we can to draw the advantages of a move to Northern Ireland to the attention of every suitable firm. There have been a number of successes recently, but I will not weary hon. Members with the details.
From my personal experience I can inform the House that when in New York a few weeks ago I had the privilege, while there on Government business, of seeing for myself at first hand the activities of some of the officials of the Northern Ireland Government who are attempting to attract American industry to Northern Ireland. I was most impressed by the work they are doing.
Now, the North East. It seems to the Government that the North East Development Group is pressing ahead well. The acquisition of the site for the South Tees-side Industrial Estate is well in hand and the comprehensive survey and plan for re-developing Tees-side has now been launched. It is true beyond doubt that there has been an upsurge in the rate of inquiries. This is to be welcomed and I hope that those inquiries will result in more projects going to the North East.
As to the specific questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland, he will have to rely on me to give him the answers in due course. The same applies to my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans). The hon. Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) asked me several specific questions about Wales. There has indeed been a transformation in the Welsh economy.
On the other hand, there are problems and difficulties, and both hon. Members mentioned the situation in Pressed Steel. It would be premature to suggest that that area should again be added to the list of development districts. I am told two things. I am told that the prospects for further employment of people who will be leaving the Pressed Steel factory—which, alas, has never been a very great success—are good. I am also informed that there is some prospect that another firm will in due time—and perhaps not before long, although I cannot, for obvious reasons, go into details now—take over the factory. So there is hope. I will pay attention in the immediate future to the point about derelict sites mentioned by the hon. Member for Gower.
Employment in Scotland was referred to by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), by my hon. Friend the Member for Bute and North Ayrshire, and other hon. Members. It is true that in certain parts of Scotland the unemployment situation is serious, but the figures since last summer show that the situation is improving, and that the underlying trend is downwards. Between mid-July, 1963 and mid-February, 1964, unemployment rose by 5,750, as compared with an average increase of over 18,000 in the same period over the last ten years. From now until the

summer, as the House will know, the seasonal trend will, happily, be down.
In 1963, 36 English or overseas firms, with a total future employment of over 11,000, decded to develop in Scotland—the largest number of companies so to decide in any one year since the war. It is, therefore, fair to say that the prospects are not all gloomy. It is, of course, urgent and important that better progress should be made, but the present news is not all gloomy, and it is right that I should say so——

Dr. Dickson Mabon: But what do the Government estimate will be the number of jobs they will lose in the period in which they gain that 11,000?

Mr. du Cann: I cannot say at the moment, but I will let the hon. Gentleman have a note on the subject as promptly as possible.
I should have liked to have spoken about the South-West, from which I have just returned, but as I have not been asked about it I will not weary the House with details of my tour. Nor have I been asked about Merseyside or the North-West, and I hope that neither area will feel it improper that I should not mention them now.
The questions I was asked about growth areas seemed to indicate a view that these areas are not a wise or a sensible conception, but that seems not to be the general economic opinion. Begging the pardon of certain hon. Members who may be here tonight—although I cannot see all round the place—I am not too sure that one should always accept everything told one by the economists—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad that I carry some people with me—I was getting worried.
It is significant and interesting to note that although there are some hon. Members—and I think that the hon. Member for Hamilton was one—who do not find the concept of the growth area necessarily satisfactory, although I believe that they are wrong, there is a great deal of pressure from hon. Members, for constituency reasons, to have their constituencies or other areas in which they are interested included in the growth areas, which makes me feel that perhaps not everything is wrong with them.
I believe that the growth areas have substantial advantages. The first is that a growth area is a funnel for increased public investment and, indeed, it will not cease to be a development district just because its own economic health improves; in other words, it will be a continuing opportunity for building up prosperity in general in the part of the world that has been selected for its site.

Dr. Mabon: The hon. Gentleman will see one of his colleagues beside him who once expressed most clearly to us this distinction between growth areas and development districts. My constituency is a development district. It is not a growth area. This is the concern which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) was trying to express. If an area is a growth district and also a development district it is in the first division, but if it is simply a development district it is in the second division in the matter of public investment. Our area, with high unemployment, is by definition a development district and we are terribly concerned that this discrimination in terms of public investment is made against us.

Mr. du Cann: Which is really the opposite of some of the things that have been said tonight.
I understand the hon. Member's concern. It is quite reasonable if one is concerned immediately with a development district to think that there is some other part of the world that is getting some special advantages. But what matters in the long-term? At the furthest remove it is vital that the whole economy expands and is prosperous. Coming a little closer it is equally vital that the growth area expands and is prosperous, and if both conditions obtain they must bring benefit to the development district, which by itself alone has advantages over the rest of the whole of the United Kingdom. Therefore I do not think that it is quite appropriate to talk in terms of first and second divisions when the whole standard of grant help and improvements has risen so greatly.
I come to talk of financial assistance and the House might like to have the latest figures. The total help under the Local Employment Acts now for the whole of Great Britain is £103½ million, bringing an estimated additional employment of no less than 121,000 jobs. The

total sum in B.O.T.A.C. assistance for Great Britain is about 362 projects recommended. The total number of standard grants for Great Britain is no less than 1,159. I quote these figures deliberately as an indication that a great deal has happened. It is fair to say that those jobs of which I spoke earlier might well not be there if Parliament as a whole had not given approval in the past to the necessary legislation.
The hon. Member for Hamilton asked certain questions about Board of Trade factories. At present the Board of Trade owns 55 million square feet of factory premises, of which about 40 million square feet are in development districts mainly in Central Scotland and North-East England. Currently 1½ million square feet of premises are under construction, again mainly in Central Scotland and North-East England.
During 1962–63 a programme of 32 factories was announced by the Government and that factory building programme, as the House will know, continues. The latest addition is an advance factory in the unhappily high unemployment area of Falmouth. In addition to building factories for the known requirements of tenants, and advance factories, the Board of Trade is developing new industrial estates. I agree with the favourable opinions expressed about this programme. It is perhaps one of the best ways of helping.
I was asked questions about the Board of Trade Advisory Committee. I will not discuss its functions now but I should like to make three points. The first is that the Committee does not judge applications solely from the point of view of the commercial lender. It also has regard to the policy of the Act, and that fact is not always understood. The second point is that it has no bias against small projects. I have heard this suggested, and it was suggested to me on my recent tour of the South-West. For example 29 of the 54 loans recommended in the North-East were for £30,000 or less.
The third point is about delay. I recognise that this is a matter of some concern to hon. Members. I ask that where they are aware of a single instance of what they believe to be avoidable delay that they should take this up at once with


the Secretary of State or with me or with the Parliamentary Secretary. I assure hon. Members that there are no cases of avoidable delay of which I am aware. My hon. Friend the Member for Bute and North Ayrshire mentioned two cases specifically. I do not have the answer on one of them to hand—I will write to my hon. Friend about it—but the point with regard to the second is that the accountants of the firm concerned did not, apparently, supply up-to-date accounts. The accountants advising the Committee, obviously, cannot start their investigation until they have those accounts. That is why, in this particular case at Rothsay, we cannot see that a decision is given before May, since we did not have the information until March.
I have been asked about I.D.C. approvals. I was rather struck by the point made by the hon. Member for Hamilton in this connection. So much of the growth in and around the Midlands, London and the South-East is inevitable, and no bad thing for that. It does not necessarily create additional jobs. Hon. Members will understand this well. I regret that I did not understand the hon. Gentleman's case about Slough, unless it related to building factories having an area of 5,000 sq. ft. or less. I think that the limit is right. It was, in fact, set by the Labour Government in 1947, and I should not myself like to recommend changing it. Perhaps, if the hon. Gentleman reads these words of mine, he will be good enough to let me have particulars, which I shall be happy to look into.
I have taken out the figures for the last two quarters of 1963, and they show that in Scotland I.D.C. approvals during those six months covered about 2,585,000 sq. ft., for 8,001 jobs. In the Northern area the figure was 2,516,000 sq. ft., for 8,130 jobs. For London and the South-East, the figure was only just 2 million sq. ft., and the total number of jobs to be provided will be less than half the Scottish total. I do not think that it can be said that we are being unreasonable in I.D.C. approvals. I am deliberately not using the words "pursuing a tough line". I think that we are pursuing a reasonable and sensible policy.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I am sorry to interrupt again, but I am speaking on behalf of several of my hon. Friends from Scotland who have just caught a train. Could the hon. Gentleman give similar figures for the south-east of England for the same period?

Mr. du Cann: All I can say about those other Scottish Members is "lucky dogs". I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentleman that I have not the figures to hand. I know that he will understand. I got these figures out particularly because they were the ones I was asked about; but I shall see that he has the information.
As hon. Members may know, the Secretary of State and I are both to attend the London County Council Conference on decentraisation during the course of tomorrow. In view of the publication of the White Paper and the comments which have been made, I thought it right to say something about offices in London and about the South-East Study itself. As regards offices, the first objective—let us be clear about it—must be to get offices to move a really long way from London. As regional development goes forward, it should be possible to get more office growth outside the South-East altogether. The problem has to be tackled at both ends, that is, by private enterprise and by the Government
The Location of Offices Bureau is dealing wilt private enterprise in London by encouraging employers to move their existing offices out of Central London and by discouraging the setting up of new offices in London. Incidentally, we are pursuing—it is fair to say this—a very tough planning policy. Since its inception, the Bureau has been approached by well over 300 firms. How many of these will ultimately decide to move it is not possible to say, but 75 of them have. already definitely decided to move or come to reasonably firm decisions to do so. The number of jobs involved in these 75 is about 13,000, or nearly a whole year's increase of office employment in Central London. I hope that the House will regard that as not a bad start.
Now, the Government side. The total strength of the non-industrial Civil Service is 688,000, of whom 133,000 are


headquarters staffs here in London. Some people talk as though there were about 2 million civil servants in London and that we ought to move everyone out. I appreciate that the House does not share this view.
In July 1963, we announced that the Government had accepted the recommendations made by Sir Gilbert Fleming, following his review of Civil Service headquarters work in London and, as a result, moves affecting 19,000 staff—in addition to the 31,000 headquarters staff previously dispersed from London—are now in progress, or planned for the near future, making a total of about 50,000. Most of these moves, including the dispersal of the Post Office Savings Bank, with a staff of 7,500, will be to places right outside of London. As hon. Members may know, Hastings, Crawley and Basingstoke have already been announced as locations for staff of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, the Paymaster-General's office and the Forestry Commission, respectively. An announcement about the location decided upon for the Post Office Savings Bank will be made soon.
I hope that we shall not disappoint all those hon. Members who have asked for them to go to their particular locations, but hon. Members can be sure that the Government's decisions in this matter will be wise and prudent and in the best interests of everybody.
Now to say something about the South-East Study. I have observed with interest that the evening newspapers have described it as "a document of historical importance". One rather lyrical writer described it, to my surprise, as "visionary". The fact is that we have to deal with a population explosion. One hon. Member got his facts a little wrong, but my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) was good enough to put him right, I have no doubt that we shall all be able to see the position better when we have had an opportunity to study the White Paper.
I would like to draw the attention of the House particularly to four matters which appear in the White Paper. First, it is stated that, where possible, economic growth will be channelled to other parts

of the country than the South-East; secondly, that priority in public investment will go to central Scotland and the North-East; thirdly, that employment and expansion schemes in Scotland will not be allowed to detract from other parts of the country, and, fourthly, the Government will ensure that growth in other parts of the country are not prejudiced.
The South-East Study is a document dealing with an area which has a background totally different from the North-East, or Merseyside, or Northern Ireland, or Wales, and I can assure the hon. Lady the Member for Carmarthen that we shall get out the study for Wales just as quickly as we conveniently can do it. We shall not delay, but I am certain that she would be the first to admit that it is a complicated subject; but I hope that it will be with us in the tolerable future in accordance with the announcement recently made by the Minister for Welsh Affairs.
As I have tried to indicate, every region is different. It has been right to produce this current South-East Study, and to take action, but everything will be done in the context of not in any way derogating from the Government's regional priority, which is to help those who most need help. That is a duty of Parliament, and it is most assuredly a duty for the Government.
Speaking in the context of the situation generally, the unemployment figures show an improvement over the previous month. We have not the latest figures—which will be available next week—but I think that enough has been said in the speeches tonight to show that the policies of the Government are the right policies. It is our wish that they should bite harder and should be more effective. It is the Government's determination that that shall be so.

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORY, SWYNNERTON

12.5 a.m.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: Perhaps I can do something to put the speech which we have just heard into proper perspective for certain hon. Members. From some of the things that are said in this House, one would sometimes imagine that the Midlands was a kind of paradise where all


was sweetness and life, with plenty of jobs available, efficiency, competency, and so on. I am sorry to have to disillusion some hon. Members. The tale which I have to tell under the heading of "The Swynnerton story" is a very sorry one. It is a legend of frustration and muddle, of extraordinary incompetence in high places and quite exceptional patience amongst the people of Staffordshire and the West Midlands. It is a seven years' saga of wasted opportunities for employment and development and some of the things that the House has just been discussing which have been thrown away over a period of nearly seven years. The will still does not exist to seize these opportunities.
Swynnerton is a beautiful village in the centre of Staffordshire. This village lies in the constituency of Stafford and Stone. It has been part of my duty over a period of many years to notify the right hon. Gentleman who is Secretary of State for Air, who represents the constituency of Stafford and Stone in this House, that it was my intention to raise questions connected with Swynnerton, because they affected a considerable area and a large number of people outside the constituency of Stafford and Stone.
When I notified Mr. Speaker and the Departments concerned that I intended to raise this subject tonight, I notified the Secretary of State for Air, in whose constituency Swynnerton lies. I know that he would have been present tonight were it not for the fact that his official duties required him to attend an engagement elsewhere. I have no idea what opinions he would have expressed on the Swynnerton story had he the freedom to express them. For a long period, the right hon. Gentleman has suffered under the disability of being unable to express himself on this subject. We hope shortly to be able to liberate him from that position and enable him to express himself more freely, having cast aside the burdens of office. I know, however, that had it been possible, the right hon. Gentleman would have been here tonight to listen to this debate.
The problem which I am presenting affects a considerable part of the County of Staffordshire and a wide area. It is a problem that has caused a high degree of frustration for many years in the

constituency which I represent. It dates back to the period of the war.
I shall not go into great detail on the history of the construction of the Royal Ordnance factory in Swynnerton in the Second World War. It so happened that the powers-that-be decided that because of certain natural features of this beautiful village in Central Staffordshire in the early days of the Second World War, it was a suitable site for a large ordnance factory. The factory was constructed with remarkable speed and was. completed in 1940. I believe that a public investment of £13 million was made in the construction of the Royal Ordnance factory on this site, with the remarkable natural camouflage which existed in the area.
At the peak of the war this factory in the heart of the Staffordshire countryside employed a total of 25,000 workers. It made a most important contribution as an arsenal of the weapons of war to victory over the Nazis in 1945. Workers from all over Staffordshire were drawn to it and underwent the hazards and dangers of working on the site, where considerable development had taken place with large-scale concrete aprons, the provision of all kinds of services, very large underground storage, and so on, as a result of the considerable public investment. There is no doubt that the contribution of the Swynnerton factory to the means of victory was very considerable.
In 1945 all of us who represented parts of Staffordshire recognised that, naturally, there would be a rundown of the factory. I shall not produce all the records tonight, but early on we were exerting pressure in the House for the conversion of the factory to civil work because of the danger and problem of redundancy and unemployment through the rundown. It was a continuing problem from 1945 to 1947. As employment in the factory fell, many people moved from the area. A certain degree of unemployment developed in North Staffordshire because of the decrease in employment opportunities at the factory.
Up to 1956, when the then Minister of Supply undertook a general review of arms work at the Royal Ordnance factories and came to certain con-


clusions, many of us had been pressing the Government to declare what would be the future of the site. We were constantly assured that some employment opportunities would be provided. Finally, in July, 1957, the then Minister of Supply announced that the Government had decided completely to close the factory.
Many problems arose out of that, involving the transfer of a number of people to other areas and spheres of employment. But in the summer of 1957 we were mainly concerned with a decision about the future of the site and the future use of the facilities provided by the considerable investment of public money during the war on services, making the site accessible, on storage facilities, hostels, sewerage, water supplies, roads and so on. We were concerned to get as soon as possible a decision which would provide for the people in North Staffordshire future opportunities of employment in civil work arising from this public investment. But as the labour force dispersed and ran down and this factory began to empty, all that was fed to us was a diet of rumours—rumours abounding. Rumours have persisted for nearly seven years. We have heard nothing but rumours. There has been no decision, no plan, no definite proposal.
There were rumours that the site was to be taken over by Staffordshire County Council for housing. There were rumours that it would be used for Birmingham's overspill. It was rumoured that it might be converted, that it might be used as a satellite town, and that it would be an industrial estate to help deal with the problems of the Black Country. At one time there was a rumour that it would be converted into a show ground for the Royal Agricultural Society. That persisted for some time until denied by the R.A.S. itself.
Some of the local authorities put up a proposition that the site should be converted into a caravan site. That too, ran for some time. In January, 1960, the British Motor Corporation was granted by the Board of Trade a permit to establish a factory on part of the site to provide employment. Shortly afterwards, however, other Birmingham in-

dustrialists who applied for industrial development certificates were choked off and told that the Government were not interested and that the whole thing was being dealt with elsewhere.
Where is it being dealt with? That is one of our problems. In July 1957, the Minister of Supply announced that the factory would be closed, throwing thousands out of work, and leaving derelict a highly developed site in which millions of pounds of public money had been invested. One of our problems was to discover how this matter was to be considered. It was the baby, allegedly, of many different Departments. The Ministry of Supply was the occupier when the factory was closed; the Board of Trade was concerned if there was to be civil engineering development; early in the story the Ministry of Housing and Local Government came into the picture because it wished the site to be discussed as a potential satellite town or as a possible place for overspill from Birmingham.
Through 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963 we asked literally scores of questions in this House. The local authorities were also asking questions. We all wanted to know what was happening. There was speculation and great strain at times. One of the local authorities would accuse another of putting forward some proposition which would be disputed and speedily denied. But we could never find out exactly what was happening.
The local planning authority was the Staffordshire County Council. It was obviously primarily concerned, and quite rightly so, to consult the local authorities immediately concerned, the Stone Urban and Rural District Councils. But of course a large number of people who had found employment at this R.O.F. during the war and immediately afterwards came from North Staffordshire, from Stoke-on-Trent, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, from the constituency of Leek, and the areas thereabouts. Those were the districts which were most closely affected, and they are anxious that the site should be used for the benefit of the people of North Staffordshire.
It seems extraordinary that for seven years that site was virtually sterilised by the Government kicking Swynnerton like


a football from department to department. It is an extraordinary story of passing the buck from one department to another, and of steadily alienating those who might have been concerned with doing some constructive work.
Leaders of industrial firms who, in 1957, 1958, or 1959, might have offered to provide some employment were choked off. They were browned off because of the delays, the evasive answers, and so on. The local authorities concerned became frustrated, and people in the area were amazed at the length of time that it was taking to arrive at a decision on the matter.
We realise the complex problems that have to be considered by the local authorities concerned and by the Government when a site of this character is being considered, but that is no reason for seven years of procrastination. If that is the sort of thing that happens when the creation of a new town is being considered, or when the overspill problem is being dealt with, some drastic changes are needed.
What was the aim of this whole business? In July 1957 the Minister of Supply announced the closure of the R.O.F., thereby throwing thousands of people out of work. Shortly afterwards consideration of the future of the site was passed to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in relation to the problem of overspill and development in the West Midlands. That was in 1958. I shall not bother about the date. The Parliamentary Secretary is present and he can tell us that.
The fact is that from shortly after the Government decided to close this R.O.F., until 14th January of this year, the site was sterilised. All development on it was shelved. Nothing could be done because the matter was under consideration in secret session between the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the local authorities.
The upshot of that consideration was a statement by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in this House on 14th January, 1964, when he said:
… I have concluded that it would not be desirable to propose using or earmarking this site for any major development of the kind that would depend on the issue of industrial development certificates, or the provision on a substantial scale of new housing and

community services."—[OFFICIAl REPORT, 14th January, 1964 Vol. 687, c. 11.]
It took the Ministry of Housing and Local Government nearly seven years to arrive at that conclusion, during which time this site remained unused. The possibilities of employment have been neglected; the possibilities of attracting people to the site have been gravely dninished, and the local authorities concerned have been tremendously frustrated. What happened in the end" The Ministry of Supply ceased to exist, so the buck was passed to the War Office. The War Office, inheriting the possessions of the former Ministry of Supply, had the 700 acres of the Swynnerton site passed back to it early in 1964, after the Ministry of Housing and Local Government had spent nearly six years sterilising the site through its discussions. Now the War Office is starting new discussions with the local authorities on what should be done with the site.
Still, in early 1964, we are discussing the same question as was raised before the closure of the factory in 1957, as well as immediately afterwards: what will be the future of the facilities—the underground storage; the concrete aprons, the factory space and the hostels on the Swynnerton site? There are more than 700 acres on the site. Services are available as a result of millions of pounds' worth of public investment in the Second World War. The site is accessable from a wide area. Thousands of workers used to go there daily during the Second World War and after the war, as long as it continued as an arsenal for the Armed Forces.
It is generally agreed that there is a need for more industry in this area, and for more diversification. Certainly that is agreed among the representatives of North Staffordshire in the House, and among most of the local authorities, and it is demonstrated by certain figures. In North Staffordshire we have two main industries—pottery and coalmining. For a considerable period the labour force in the pottery industry has been contracting. A process of rationalisation and streamlining has been going on. As for coalmining—there is little recruitment in the locality, because we are receiving recruits from the dying coalfields in other parts of the country. This is a deliberate policy, which in-


volves many difficulties, especially in respect of housing in North Staffordshire, but it is an accepted policy that we should assist the dying areas in Wales, Scotland and the North-East coast. We receive mineworkers from those areas rather than recruit and train new mineworkers in the locality.
This means that the opportunities for employment in this principal industry are diminished. We who know the area of North Staffordshire have long taken the view that we need a greater diversity of industrial opportunity in the area. At present there are 3,000 unemployed in Stoke-on-Trent. There are more than 4,000 unemployed in the North Staffordshire district comprising Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Kidsgrove—represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies)—and Market Drayton. Of these, we have over 1,000 citizens unemployed who are disabled persons.
This is a considerable and special problem in North Staffordshire, as in other mining districts, where there is a fairly large corps of disabled workers, mine workers who have unfortunately contracted pneumoconiosis or had accidents in the pits, pottery workers who are disabled, and who cannot find means of employment. I criticise the employers in North Staffordshire for many things, but I do not criticise them for not employing a proper quota of disabled workers. They employ a good quota of disabled workers, but the fact is that there is unfortunately an increasing number of persons in this part of the West Midlands who are disabled in industry and who need special opportunities of employment. The figures I have here and which were in HANSARD yesterday show the situation in these districts, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme, which I represent, Market Drayton, Kidsgrove and Stone, and they show that more than 1,000 disabled workers are unemployed in those districts at the moment.
If so much of those seven years had not been wasted, if there had not been so much of this saga of frustration and muddle about Swynnerton, not so many of those people would have been in the poor state in which they are today. This site presents a very good opportunity for increasing industrial diversity in Stafford-

shire, for special employment opportunities, let us say, for disabled workers. I would to God we had a Government who would themselves initiate opportunities on a site like this, specially for disabled workers, or certain types of workers who are unemployed, but it is really a scandalous state of affairs that this story has gone on for so long. It is quite extraordinary that we have been so patient as to allow a site of this kind to be so neglected, to be kicked around in this way, not to be used for the benefit of the people. In this country we cannot afford such wastage of time and space. We need to have the courage to plan, and the courage to plan involves a time for decision, and using opportunities.
I now ask, at this very late hour, after this extraordinary wastage which has taken place, that a decision will speedily be taken to use this developed site for the benefit of those who need employment, and those who need homes, in the North Staffordshire area as a whole, and that no further time will be taken by such a story of bureaucracy run mad as I have had to tell tonight.

12.35 a.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: There is no need to reiterate the eloquent plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler), but for the sake of the record I point out that he and I and hon. Members from other North Staffordshire constituencies have visited this site. They include the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. H. Fraser), who is a member of the Government. In 1939 £13 million was spent on it and at today's values that would be about £30 million or more. Excellent roads and railway approaches were made.
At one time my hon. Friend and I visited the massive hostels where men and women gave their lives and limbs to work in the establishment were living. A great saga could be written about the thousands who lost limbs or fingers and who later were in those hotels. When this place which is in a beautiful environment closed I asked that, with its roads, sewers and first-class drainage, it should be used for some constructive object. Some of the hostels were used as a training college for teachers after the


war, and there was also a training college there for Post Office engineers.
Now industry is sterilised, and the facts stand out like a sore thumb for every local authority in the county to see. All we hear is rumour; no constructive proposals are made. At one time we thought that a new town was to be made there. How right my hon. Friend was when he said that the area needs diversification of industry! Those of us who live in mining and pottery areas in dirt and grime know the price that has to be paid in chest diseases, bronchitis, pneumoconiosis and emphysema. New industries could be brought to the area to provide jobs for the green card unemployed—the green card warriors who are disabled and no longer able to take part in the bitter struggle at the coal face or in the pottery industry. Why has something not been done? At one time we were told that Birmingham and some of the Black Country towns were to expand by overspill to this area. There have been ideas for factories and caravan sites, yet no planning authority seems to have been taken into the confidence of the Government.
It is a late hour and I know how assiduous is the Parliamentary Secretary. We often see him answering debates late at night. I hope that he will not take anything I say as a reflection on him or his department, but I had hoped that a representative of the Board of Trade or the War Department would be present to answer this debate. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say that he has consulted his hon. Friends in those departments and that he is able to give a constructive answer about new industries coming to the area.
The case has been excellently made by my hon. Friend. This is a great area of Britain which needs planning and where assets are wasted. There has been talk in North Staffordshire about a new county area and talk about planning. On this site there is a railway siding, electrification of the railway has been carried out right from London to Swynnerton. New industry could be encouraged to go there. An arm of the M6 extends to this beautiful village. This wonderful road, which is an asset to British Transport, goes through this

lovely area and gives Swynnerton and the surrounding countryside an even greater constructive importance.
I hope that commonsense will prevail and that, when considering the best way to spend the taxpayers' money, the Government will take another look at Swynnerton and assure us that in the near future constructive plans will be brought forward for the area so that it will become either a new town or have new industries attracted to it. I need not speak further on this subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme has performed a valuable service in calling attention to this matter and has expressed the case admirably. I hope that the Minister will have something worthwhile to say.

12.42 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): I fully appreciate that it is frustrating to observe a large area of land laid out with services, buildings and so on apparently lying idle and probably an eyesore to the neighbourhood. One is constantly aware that that type of installation represents a considerable public investment of the past. But many of the arguments that have been deployed tonight about sterilisation, waste, the availability of services, access to industrial areas and so on apply to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of former Service and ordnance sites throughout the country which the exigencies of war placed in positions which are not necessarily suitable for civilian industry in times of peace.
The problem of Swynnerton has been, to some extent, the consideration of the area as a possible site for a new town to meet the great problem of the expanding and overflowing population of Birmingham. In the initial stages, certainly since 1958, this was the main consideration. But I would remind the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) that owing to the use for which this area was originally put—the making of explosives—in the interests of public safety there had to be a period of what I believe is called "decontamination," which I have always associated with chemical warfare rather than the other variety, to ensure that the area was safe.
I understand that it was not until 1961 that that assurance could be given. It was at that time that my right hon. Friend the former Minister of Housing announced that in the immediate plans for meeting the problem of Birmingham's overspill, Swynnerton had no place, because Dawley had been selected.
In the next stage, one had to look at Birmingham's problem in a slightly different context, because it was becoming more and more obvious that the right priority, and the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme asked us to state our priorities, was for industry that was reasonably mobile—I believe the technicians use the awful term "footloose"—to be steered as far as possible to the North-East, Central Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of Wales where the unemployment problem, despite what the hon. Member may say, is worse because of the general structure of the older basic industries in those parts.
I do not believe that either hon. Member would challenge the fact that that is the right priority for the movement of industry on a large scale. Neither would they challenge that an area of what I am told is over 700 acres—I think that it was originally 900 acres, but some of it was sold to the B.M.C. for development, as has been mentioned—must clearly be considered in terms of development on a substantial scale. I hope that they will agree that development on such a scale would not be suitable for the sort of figures mentioned, let alone the thousand disabled people—

Mr. Swingler: If the Government thought at that time, as is alleged, that all new indsutry should be channelled to the North-East or other places, why did they not rip up the concrete aprons, and revert to agriculture? This was an agricultural place, and that could have been done four years ago, but the decision has not even yet been taken. They have not had the courage to do that, if that was the argument. The Government have dilly-dallied all this time, not taking the decision that the site should not be developed for civil industry, but also not taking a decision that it should be allowed to revert to agriculture if it was thought that industry should go elsewhere.

Mr. Corfield: With due respect to the hon. Member, I am coming to that side of the story. I hope that he will accept that the employment position in this part would not, in itself, justify full-scale industry—and the hon. Member directed a good part of his argument to industrial development on this site as a whole. Therefore, the concept of this as an industrial site must be looked at in terms of a large-scale development. This, as I explained earlier, was the original idea in considering the site as the nucleus of a new town, because for new town purposes such an acreage as 700 or 800 would have to be expanded very substantially.
Even when Dawley was selected as the site of the new town for Birmingham nobody imagined that that had solved the whole of Birmingham's problem or that of the Midlands with regard to overspill housing and the movement of industry to match the people moving into the houses. It was clear that the bulk of the mobile industry should be elsewhere. With that and other considerations in mind, when a full survey had been carried out it was concluded that the needs of Birmingham could be better met in another way. This will be partly by more building on the periphery of the city and partly by another new town at Redditch, the inquiry into which was completed recently. Such development would be closer to Birmingham and less dependent upon moving industry from other parts of the country.
While these investigations were going on and a study of the real needs of Birmingham was being made, Swynnerton had to remain at least a possibility if not a probability. It would have been lack of wisdom and foresight carried to an extreme degree to have scrapped this installation owned by the Government, in the sense of getting rid of it or destroying it, before it was certain that it should not fulfil this immensely useful purpose in meeting the needs of Birmingham. Despite the fact that the needs of Birmingham in the next 10 to 15 years look like being solved elsewhere, nobody would be foolish enough to say that in an area like this there may not be a greater need in 15 to 25 years. I am sure, however, that the hon. Member will agree that when such a stage of forward planning is reached


one cannot go on holding an area of this size in reserve.
I agree that part of it no doubt could be returned to agriculture. Afforestation has been mentioned. This would probably be more economic in the short term because pit is immensely costly to destroy these roadways sufficiently to enable the land to be returned to agriculture on a profitable basis in a short time. Now that it has been decided—and it was only decided when my right hon. Friend made the announcement in January last—that Swynnerton can be ruled out for new town purposes the problem goes back, so to speak, to the local planning authority which will be given every assistance it requires by my Department. I have no doubt that the War Office and the planning authority between them will decide upon a use in the not too distant future which will meet many of the things that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme wants.

Mr. Harold Davies: Afforestation has been mentioned. What grants would be available for that development? Would the area be looked upon as a great experimental area not only for the conifer but the deciduous branch of that industry?

Mr. Swingler: Is the Parliamentary Secretary saying that he regards 6½ years as a fairly reasonable time for considering how to use a site of 700 acres? We would like to know, as a matter of his Department's policy. We appreciate the complexity of many of these issues. The hon. Gentleman now says that the matter has been passed to the local planning authority, which must be fed up after having been discussing it for six years. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that six years is quite a reasonable time for his Ministry in its wisdom to investigate and consider the possibilities while meantime the site lies unused, idle and going derelict?

Mr. Corfield: The hon. Member knows that on the face of it I will agree with him but he must remember the rider that, as my right hon. Friend has said over and over again in the House, it was only in recent years, as compared with the 1954–55 period, that the Registrar General had announced that we were facing a really dramatic

expansion of the population and an even more dramatic expansion of the number of houses required for a given size of population. This, of course, makes a basic difference to the whole concept of planning in an expanding area like the Midlands as compared with a concept of planning based on a relatively static population. Quite obviously, after that period——

Mr. Swingler: Is the Parliamentary Secretary saying that his Ministry learned about the needs of Birmingham overspill only after 1958? I appreciate that the Department has no special kind of crystal ball, but it is not good enough to say to us in North Staffordshire that, after all the time that this land was sterilised, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government only then got itself informed about the pressure of population. That must be nonsense

Mr. Corfield: I think that the hon. Gentleman is deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying. The scale became bigger and, therefore, it was sensible to have a broader and more detailed look at the matter. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in studying the real needs of Birmingham, it was not simply a matter of sitting down in the office in Whitehall. There was also the need to have very close consultation, first, with the Birmingham City Corporation itself and, second, with the various counties in the neighbourhood where there might be more suitable alternative sites. This was not something that could be done in months, though I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman that one would have hoped it could be done more quickly than in six years.
Nevertheless, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that, having decided on Dawley and then having discussed a variety of alternatives for Birmingham we should have been wrong to give up this area until it was certain that it would not be needed. This project, if developed, would affect the whole of the area not for six or seven years but for two, three or four generations. Clearly, it is important that everything should be taken into account before Crown property of this kind is disposed of for some other purpose.
The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) asked me about afforestation.
My Department does not answer for this, but I am prepared to have a shot, nevertheless. As I understand it, if an area of this sort were afforested, there would be grants available. The advantage of afforestation in the initial stages, I understand, is that it is one of the cheaper, if rather long-term, means of getting rid of concrete because tree roots will eventually shift most things. Whether that is the best answer in the long term will be, to a large extent, a question for decision by the local planning authority.
I hope—indeed, I have little doubt—that a use will be put forward which will make considerable use of the existing facilities for storage and thereby create some more employment to meet the relatively small figures which the hon. Member mentioned. I say "relatively" in terms of the sort of figures one would have in mind if the whole area were developed and the sort of figures represented by the employment when the munitions factory itself was at its peak.
But I stress that only in January was the final decision taken. Redditch was the subject of a recent inquiry. The local planning authority is now consulting the War Office, which is the disposing authority. Naturally, representing, in a sense, the Treasury and the taxpayer, the War Office must be concerned to some extent to find a use which will, on a sale or lease, or whatever method of disposal be chosen, repay so far as possible some of the immense investment which the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
I have no doubt that the matter will not pose insuperable difficulties for the local planning authority. I do not for a moment deny that, if I lived close to an area like this, I might well feel a degree of frustration and impatience. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] But I assure the hon. Gentleman that the delay was solely in the interests of ensuring that in the larger context of new towns and the West Midlands expansion altogether we did not part with something which would have proved the best place, or one of the best places, for a new town which would make its contribution to the solution of the problem in the area.

Mr. Swingler: Would the hon. Gentleman set a time limit to this? I think that he is agreed that he himself would be completely frustrated if he lived in this

area by this example of bureaucracy run mad. His Department has a responsibility, but would he also consult the War Office and then say that there could be decision in, say, June, or October? When will this matter be decided?

Mr. Corfield: The Secretary of State for War is as anxious as anybody to get on with this. For one thing, the Government like to collect the money, but the decision has already clearly been taken that there will be no requirement of this area for a new town. There will, I am sure, be no avoidable delay.

Orders of the Day — LOCAL AUTHORITY VALUATIONS (COMPULSORILY ACQUIRED PROPERTIES)

1.0 a.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: It is my purpose to raise the subject of the valuation of private property compulsorily acquired by local authorities and, more particularly, the problem of public confidence in the system of valuation.
I submit that it is undesirable that such valuation should be attempted by the acquiring authority itself—that is, by its own employees—and preferable for it to be done by the district valuer, who is not employed by, or answerable to, the acquiring authority, but is employed by the central government. This is of special relevance just now while the details of the reorganisation of Greater London are under consideration and close scrutiny.
I want to make it absolutely clear at the outset that I am considering the comparative merits of the two systems and am not making any criticisms of one or the other which may cast aspersions on the integrity or competence of any employees of local authorities who may have to work a system which I consider is not desirable in the public interest.
We have a duty to consider these principles, and what is said must not be construed as a reflection on persons, many of whom I, like other hon. Members, represent in this House. I ask my hon. Friend, whom I thank for being here at this late hour with his usual patience and courtesy, to make an inquiry into this problem so that he may consider his own responsibilities in a matter which becomes ever more important as housing policy evolves.
The fundamental principle is that a man must not be judge in his own case. That goes for local authorities, too, but some of them, including the London County Council, which is the largest local authority in the world, laugh at this principle. The horrid business of the compulsory acquisition of the property of private individuals (sometimes necessary but always regrettable) is rendered far more intolerable by the way in which it is sometimes carried out, for example in London today.
For who does the assessing for compensation in London? The interested party the buyer—and in London that is the London County Council. Most local authorities arrange for the valuation to be carried out by the district valuer, who is an employee of the Inland Revenue and not a servant of the acquiring authority. How different with the L.C.C.! That authority uses its own employees as valuation officers; those employees negotiate, and those employees assess. And let there be no quibbling about that the fact that they negotiate or bargain. They negotiate. And they bargain. They should, in fact, be called "negotiating officers". That would be much healthier, and a healthier atmosphere would prevail if they were frankly so called.
I should like to illustrate that point with respectable authority. I take, first, HANSARD of 20th February, 1962, when the hon. Lady the Member for Peckham (Mrs. Corbet) was speaking in the debate on the Government White Paper on the reorganisation of local government in Greater London. I am sorry not to see the hon. Lady in her place, but I made a point of giving her notice in writing at 10 o'clock this morning when I came to the House that I intended to refer to this speech of hers.
The hon. Lady said:
There is a large staff of valuers who acquire land for the use of the Council, who negotiate to get the best terms. It is very necessary to have experience in London in dealing with large firms whose terms may be very difficult to arrange in the Council's interests.
Note those words,
negotiate to get the best terms
and
in the Council's interests".
At that point, I intervened and said:

Would the hon. Lady confirm that she is saying that it is one of the advantages of the administration of the L.C.C. that the valuers do get the very best terms?
The hon. Lady replied, very frankly:
Yes. I would say that in the interests of the people the valuers should get the best terms they call, and that it is a good thing for the ratepayers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1962; Vol. 654, c. 283.]
I further quote from the decision of Mr. J. P. C. Done, Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, of the Lands Tribunal, in the case of Ansaldi v. Stoke-on-Trent Corporation in 1960, quoted in 12 P. & C.R. at page 220, in which Mr. Done said of the local authority valuer that
During the cross-examination … he admitted that his valuations were the basis of negotiations … It was implied that he was bargaining, not valuing. It is desirable to distinguish his function from that of a district valuer who is an independent official whose duty is to assess value and advise, and try to conclude, a settlement at that figure.
He went on to say that the local authority valuer
acts as
the local authority's
agent and he reflects the obligations of his principals to ensure that the ratepayers acquire property as cheaply as is reasonably possible.
He said that the valuer and his principals
would only deserve censure if they adopted tactics designed to deprive humble owners of their properties at less than they know them to be worth. There is no sign of anything of that kind in these cases." (That is, the cases under consideration).
It is, however, only fair to add that the judgment increased the valuation by 50 per cent. Therefore, as these authorities suggest, it is not any random reflection of mine that these are not so much valuation processes as negotiation.
The House will recognise, in the light of those illustrations, that there are bound to be pressures which must be resisted, and that they are all on the side of parsimony. For the good and faithful servant, public servant no less than any other, wishes always to please his master with a bargain in the market place. Economy is equated with virtue by the employers of public servants, who are the guardians of the public purse. as the hon. Lady the Member for Peck-ham so frankly revealed in the debate which I have quoted. And there is always the great shadow of a possible


surcharge on the officer himself, whereas there is no retribution in his mind as a possibility for, in the words of the hon. Lady, "getting the best terms" or "making a good deal" or getting the property as cheaply as possible. None of these pressures operate on the district valuer, who is not answerable to the acquiring authority.
I am convinced that the honourable men who are employed in these duties as local authority valuers do their best to be fair. If one asks them, they say they are fair. But we have to be concerned with the impact of the processes of compulsory acquisition upon the public. The disappointed property owner who ruefully compares the price that he can get from the valuer with his own assessment of the value of his home is apt to echo Emerson, who said:
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
We cannot really blame him, because although one may feel that every effort is made that justice should be done, it, quite clearly, is not seen to be done. This is a very nasty situation which should not be encouraged or tolerated. It is unfair to the owner, who may be forgiven for seeing the employee of the compulsorily acquiring authority as a kind of hired assassin moving in to the kill. But it is even more unfair—and we have a duty to protect these people in their professions—to the public servant himself who is placed in this invidious position.
To illustrate the mistrust to which I am referring, I quote from a letter from the chairman of a local residents' committee, all of whose members were under the threat of compulsory purchase—in this case by the London County Council, which happens to be the authority of which one has most experience if one represents a constituency in greater London. He said:
The general impression is one of mistrust in the system. Owners believe that they are being forced into selling to the London County Council because the London County Council can be the only buyer at a price that the London County Council dictates. This appears to them to be the antithesis of fair play.
It is representations of that kind which put into my mind the thought that this system does not altogether command public confidence.
Quite apart from the pressures that operate on him, as exemplified by the quotation from the hon. Lady, who has first hand experience of this particular authority, the local authority valuer is less well equipped to do an efficient job than the district valuer, because the district valuer is automatically supplied with details of every property that is sold in his area and every lease that is stamped in the area, and facts and figures reach him from the estate duty office whenever probate is granted. The local authority valuer, on the other hand, depends on press reports of auction prices, records of his own past deals and "comparable" sales, as he calls them. He has no reliable gauge of the current trends of the whole free market. So it is not surprising if the compensation which he tries to negotiate is often considered by the seller to be unrealistic.
I should like to illustrate very precisely the standard of realism that prevails, and for that purpose I invite the House to look at the decisions of the Lands Tribunal in appeals against the London County Council. Between 1951 and 1960 the Estates Gazette Digest of Cases reports 22 cases against the London County Council. In only four of those cases was the decision in favour of the authority; in two cases the costs were split; and there were 12 cases in which a straightforward comparison of prices can be made between the authority's final offer and the Lands Tribunal award. In the aggregate in these twelve cases the sums offered totalled £109,517 and the sums awarded totalled £192,267. In other words, when the authority's offers were nut to an impartial test before the Lands Tribunal they had to be increased on the average by about 80 per cent.
Let us see what happens when an owner does not get to the Lands Tribunal. The general experience of estate agents—and I have spoken to many of them about this—who have had to negotiate compulsory purchase prices with local authority valuation officers is fairly represented by this example taken from the books of one estate agent, who is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Over a range of 18 consecutive cases of his which I examined, the aggregate initial offers totalled £15.782. The final


prices conceded totalled £17,945, an increase of about 12½ per cent. on the average. One might say that that represents a moderate difference in a matter where opinion is involved and where there is no absolute criterion. But the House should consider a further point.
In six of these 18 cases the negotiations took over a year; in four, over two years; in one case nearly three years. In the six cases the average increase was about 72 per cent. Thus a very important factor in getting a fair price is whether the victim of a compulsory purchase order, who is often in humble circumstances, can afford to wait, to hold on while his representative negotiates.
This problem of delay was the subject of an interesting article by Mr. Michael Llewellyn in the November issue of Property. He said that, generally speaking, the valuer's job is not very demanding, and added:
Regrettably, this encourages a second-rate valuer to prefer 'the Council' as a way of life.
Mr. Llewellyn said that the delay in completing purchases was hard to understand and that there seemed no reason why it should take more than a month. He suggested that the present procedure should be amended by arranging for reference to an independent arbitrator to be made as soon as it is clear that there is a dispute. He added:
A few minutes' convervation over a telephone would quickly decide whether the parties are talking about the same figure. If not, immediate reference is the answer.
A half-hour hearing, with both sides putting forward their evidence and accepting the arbitrator's decision would settle all the negotiations quickly and easily. Appeal to the Lands Tribunal would remain an additional protection, but it is doubtful if any more vendors would appeal than do at present.
As a further example of delay I quote a letter published in the Estates Gazette on 24th July last concerning a compulsory purchase in which the L.C.C. offered £4,000 and eventually conceded £10,750, representing an increase of 150 per cent. This was after 5¼ years. The writer of the letter, an original letter from whom I have in my possession, said:

I feel very strongly that the Council could have made a reasonable offer in the first instance and in any case negotiations need only have taken a reasonable time.
To be absolutely fair, I think that one ought to observe that this system can cut both ways. It is not always the case, in Greater London for example, that the squeeze is on the little man in this matter of valuation. The L.C.C. can, when it suits its books, be very generous indeed—to the big man.
I can give an example of that from my constituency, from the experience of my borough council. My borough council would very much have liked to have bought, for the housing of local people on its housing list, a private development on the corner of Longwood Gardens and Mossford Green in Barkingside, Ilford. But the borough council is subject to Treasury lean sanction, and that loan sanction is subject to the district valuer's valuation.
In that case the L.C.C. also wanted to buy the property—for housing people on its housing list who were not Ilford people at all. The L.C.C. was not subject to loan sanction by the Treasury, because it has its own borrowing powers under an annual Act which we passed in this House. Therefore it is not limited to the district valuer's valuation. The result was that my borough could have offered only the district valuer's value as its price, and was unable therefore to contemplate proceeding with the purchase, because it realised from a similar experience in the past that the L.C.C. was able to offer more. Thus another housing authority was able to get accommodation for outside people from the hands of the. local borough council.
For that reason alone I hope that in the reorganisation of the administration of Greater London the valuation practice of the L.C.C., for example, will be scrapped and not perpetuated by the Greater London Council, which will have considerable housing powers for a number of years ahead. It cannot fail to strike many people as invidious to have one law for the rich authority and another for the poor and different practices prevailing as between different authorities in the same area.
In the face of that sort of thing, it is understandable if the confidence of owners of homes which are compulsorily


purchased, and of the professional men who try to represent these people, is somewhat shaky in the soundness and fairness of the system when they have to deal with local authorities who make their own assessment of values and are independent of Treasury control, however certain the individual vendor or his agent may be of the good intentions and personal integrity of the individual employees of the authority concerned. It is no wonder that people are deeply distressed—and to the point, as I know from personal experience, of being moved to tears.
The stock answer to all protests against a local authority being judge in its own case is that those who are subject to compulsory purchase can always appeal to the Lands Tribunal. That is true, but life is not as simple as that, as the monkey found when he closed his fist over the nut and could not get it out of the jar. Ilford Borough Council cannot appeal to the Lands Tribunal against the London County Council paying over the odds to the big property dealer and depriving the borough of a home for its own people in its own borough. And the little man who thinks that he is being squeezed cannot afford to hang on and wait. He often cannot afford to finance the delay of an appeal, because a dispossessed householder has to produce the cash for his new home, or lose the opportunity of getting it. To produce the cash he must secure the compensation for his old home quickly.

Mr. Anthony Fell: I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind my interrupting him, but I was wondering whether he can recall any other occasion on which he has taken part in an important debate of this nature when not a single Member of the Opposition has been present?

Mr. Iremonger: My hon. Friend has made his point and I would not want to gild the lily. Now that we have been joined by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), for whom we have a great affection and respect, I think that it would be only fair to say that we know that hon. Members on the other side of the House have more confidence than we have in the rightness of an all-powerful authority. We feel that it is better for people to manage their own business and affairs even if they do it

in ways that we might not think that we would do it for them. I was making the point that a man who cannot afford to wait is often forced to take less than he thinks is right. Even when a home owner can afford the financial outlay there is often a deterrent against an appeal to the tribunal, in that he feels that he will have to pay the costs of the appeal if he loses. In that case one may say that he cannot have confidence in his case—but that is not the way in which life works. It would be fairer to say that in the case of London compulsory purchases the Lands Tribunal's record is such as to suggest that when the London County Council is challenged it is very rare for it to win, judging by the fact that in so many cases costs are awarded against it.
I do not want to weary the House, and I do not think that I can fail to do so by pursuing further points. I will just make a passing reference to the very strong representations that have been made by the National Farmers' Union, in a letter to the London County Council, in which the union quotes a statement made to the council by its general purposes committee. It was reported in the 9th November issue of the Estates Gazette. The following sentence appeared in the report, in the context of arguments dealing with compensation on compulsory acquisition:
We cannot accept suggestions that the Council can in any sense be regarded as judge in its own cause.
In this letter, which I can easily make available to hon. Members, the Farmers' Union makes a powerful case and points out how, in many vital cases where there is a discretionary power, the local authority is judge in its own case, and that these discretionary powers are often the ones which make the difference between fairness and unfairness, where strict legal interest in property does not in any way compensate for the disturbance involved. This applies in the case of small shopkeepers and farmers with short tenancies. The National Farmers' Union urges the London County Council to give as much publicity to the withdrawal of this assertion as it gave to the statement, and suggests that it should urge the Government to introduce the necessary legislation. Of course we cannot discuss that on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, because


it would be out of order. I therefore make only a passing reference to it.
At the very best compulsory purchase creates an abnormal situation. The buyer knows that in the end he can take the property from the owner by force. This unhealthy situation disturbs the relationship of willing buyer and willing seller. It is neither necessary nor desirable that local authorities such as the London County Council should make matters worse by seeming to load the dice in their own favour. I submit that such local authorities should make a practice of handing over the negotiation and the assessment to the impartial district valuer. I hope that my hon. Friend, whom I thank again for his patience and courtesy in being here, will look into this matter with special regard to the reorganisation of local government in Greater London.

1.29 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): Perhaps it would be of help if I opened my remarks by stating what I believe to be the principle involved here. A local authority, along with any other body, private or public, is—as I understand it—quite free to employ such agents as are reasonably necessary for the fulfilment of its functions. Legally, it can employ any agent it likes to negotiate a price in regard to any property deal or any other deal that involves a purchase or an exchange of money. Despite my hon. Friend's censure, I use the word "negotiate" quite deliberately. I do so because, although my practical experience of valuing is almost nil—once upon a time I had some academic experience of it—it has always struck me as one of the great fallacies of life to imagine that valuation can be regarded as an exact science.
What happens between a local authority and a private person, when they negotiate a price, is really precisely the same as that which happens between two private persons. If they can afford to be and are well advised, private persons will normally each employ a qualified valuer who will argue the price till they reach a figure at which each of them feels he is justified

in advising his client that this is the reasonable figure to be paid.
The only reason, as far as I know, why local authorities, other than London, tend to employ the district valuer on these occasions is that all other authorities, in England and Wales, at any rate, are, as my hon. Friend knows, subject to Ministerial financial control, and it is the practice of Government Departments, though I do not think there is any statutory necessity, to base the decision on whether or not loan sanction is given, on the district valuer's estimate of the reasonable value. It is, therefore, of obvious convenience to employ the district valuer in the first place so that they do not have to get, so to speak, a second valuation made in order to confirm that a valuation, agreed by some other agent, is reasonable for the purpose of the loan sanction.
The only reason why the L.C.C. does not adopt this practice is that Parliament has thought fit to accept that the London County Council, because of the enormous budget which is normally involved, should not be subject to this same Ministerial control, but should bring forward each year a Money Bill for the consideration of Parliament. Therefore, it does not have to have in each transaction the district valuer's assessment of what is a reasonable price. It is entirely up to the Council, therefore, whether it takes valuers on to its permanent staff for this purpose, or whether it employs people in private practice.
My hon. Friend made the point that the district valuer automatically received large amounts of information from the Probate Office, from tax offices, and so on, which enable him to know the price at which any property in his area changed hands. He had very considerable advantages, therefore, over not only valuers employed by the County Council but indeed over any other valuers in private practice. I must admit that the thought of receiving all this information made my heart bleed a little for the district valuers. Whether they all assimilate it in the way my hon. Friend assumed I should not like to guarantee. However that may be, the valuer does not, of course, fix a price in the sense an arbi-


trator does, and say, "This property is valued at £2,000." He just, like any other valuer, starts at a level which he thinks is about right, and then negotiates, and makes it clear from the start that this is a negotiable figure. The same process is involved in both cases.
I do not think it either fair or accurate to dub this particular procedure as the local authority or anyone else acting as a judge in his own case because the district valuer is no more of a judge in this case in the sense that he is an independent arbitrator than any other valuer which a local authority might employ. My hon. Friend censured this practice of London County Council as constituting one law for the rich and one for the poor. I do not think that is so at all. In the great majority of cases where the vendor is either a man of reasonable substance or has some property of substance which is involved, the Lands Tribunal affords an admirable body for arbitration of claims, if necessary, between the two sides.
I fully accept my hon. Friend's problem, which regrettably arises in other spheres of valuation where the vendor, perhaps an unwilling vendor, is a person of humble means and very naturally regards with considerable awe the prospect of incurring additional expense by going to the Lands Tribunal, to a court, or any other form of arbitration which will involve additional expense and the risk of losing. My hon. Friend will be aware that even under the Arbitration Act costs can be awarded, with the initial consent of the parties, against one or the other. The arbitrator, of course, has to be paid.
This is a problem which I think will not be solved by setting up further steps in the chain because it is these steps which in many cases frighten off the very people whom my hon. Friend wishes to help and who I think everyone in the House is aware do occasionally get perhaps a raw deal because they do not feel like battling with what they regard as authority—let alone incurring the additional expense involved in going to the Lands Tribunal or anyone else.

Mr. Iremonger: Would it not be much more satisfactory if this whole procedure were called negotiation and not valuation and if they were called local authority

negotiators? Then we would know where we are instead of pretending that they are somehow God.

Mr. Corfield: I do not think from my correspondence that by most people any officials in my Department or any politicians are regarded as gods.
In any case the valuer usually invites the person to negotiate whether he is a district valuer or anyone else. I very much doubt whether there is any misunderstanding caused by the use of the word "valuer" instead of "negotiator." I have no doubt that if my hon. Friend perseveres he can get this word into more current parlance in preference to "valuer," but I have a feeling that tradition will beat him.
I am certain that the House as a whole is very much aware of the immense importance of, for want of a better term, the humble vendors, probably the unwilling ones, and of their being treated with the utmost courtesy in the sense that they certainly should not be frightened out of the procedures available to them and that they should be treated with a degree of generosity, particularly in some of the hard cases which occasionally arise from owner-occupiers in slum clearance areas where compensation is low. In other cases I think the Lands Tribunal system is admirable. It is very difficult to improve on it and I should want a great deal more evidence from records of cases to be convinced that the London County Council valuers are over-ruled more often than district valuers or any other form of valuer. However, I have no doubt that when a case does go against the L.C.C. or anyone else the lesson is learned, but I endorse strongly my hon. Friend's plea that the people who do not feel that they can afford these procedures—the risk of going to the Lands Tribunal—should always be treated with special care. It is my impression that they are, whether by the L.C.C. or district valuers, but he will appreciate that my Department has no direct or indirect responsibility for either.
The L.C.C. is entirely independent as to who it employs and what qualifications the employee has. The district valuers are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, if my hon. Friend


cares to pursue his researches and if he can produce strong evidence to show that over the years there has been a considerable difference in the fate of valuations put on property by L.C.C. valuers and district valuers, then if he does no more than achieve publicity he may be serving a useful purpose. However, I do not think that he will find those researches either as easy or as rewarding as he may imagine.

Orders of the Day — SHORT BROS & HARLAND

1.41 a.m.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation for his courtesy in being here at this very late hour to discuss the position of Short Bros & Harland. The matter I wish to raise has become of extreme importance as a result of the decision which was announced in the House yesterday by my right hon. Friend; the decision to order the Bell Agusta helicopter.
From the point of view of Short Bros & Harland, this was a very small fish; nevertheless, the disappointment over this matter has been intense, because it was felt that this order would have helped further to diversify the working of the firm. As I understand the position, the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State for War have said that both the Bell Agusta and the Hiller would have been suitable for the Army's requirements. That point is further strengthened by the fact that the Royal Navy already has a number of Hillers in use.
I wish tonight to probe the reasons why my right hon. Friend made his decision. In a few sentences yesterday he gave to the House the reasons why the Bell Agusta was picked. The first reason was that Westland's have more experience of helicopter work. I have no doubt that that is true, but it does not essentially get away from the fact that, initially, the firm of Hiller was sent by the Ministry of Aviation to Short Bros & Harland. One assumed at the time that it was felt that it was not unreasonable to expect that Shorts could adapt themselves to the work.
The second point to remember is that it is surely unsatisfactory that one firm, Westland's, should have the complete monopoly on helicopter construction in

this country. Although this is my own opinion, I understand that that firm decided to take a loss on the construction of the Bell Agusta. It may be said, I think, that the Bell Agusta may become the "loss-leader" of the aircraft industry. Is this not unsatisfactory and unfair to the other firms?
Another reason given yesterday by my right hon. Friend concerned the price. He said that the price of the Bell Agusta was substantially lower. My information is that the price differential between the two planes was very small. I know that detailed prices are never given in this House, but it would be helpful if my right hon. Friend could say what the price differential between the final tenders of the two firms was on a percentage basis.
I want also to refer to the general situation at Short & Harland. It would be ungenerous not to say how much I and my hon. Friends from Northern Ireland divisions appreciate my right hon. Friend's efforts as Minister of Aviation. Speaking for myself, I think that from the point of view of Short & Harland he has been the best Minister of Aviation since I came to the House.
I want particularly to refer to a somewhat alarming statement made on Monday by Mr. R. E. Harvey, joint managing director of Short & Harland. I do not want to speculate on the motives of the management in saying this, but would merely as an aside say that there is a very great danger of crying "Wolf, wolf" too often. I feel that this statement has been widely misunderstood, and in my view it was, perhaps, clumsily phrased and has created considerable unnecessary alarm. I hope that this debate will give my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation an opportunity to put the situation into perspective.
All of us in the House will note that Mr. Wrangham, the chairman, was at pains to dilute the impression of the earlier statement which had been misunderstood by many sections of the Press, and given headlines that its careful qualifications could scarcely justify. It was noticeable that Mr. Wrangham quickly put out yesterday a much more balanced and considered view of the position, because he realised the unnecessary alarm which the firm's earlier statement


had created amongst the very best of its employees.
It is also relevant to remind the House how much we welcomed the statement of the Prime Minister when he visited Belfast on 6th March that it was the intention of the Government to maintain Short & Harland as a design and production unit, from which statement we all took great reassurance of the Government's long-standing position.
I should like now to read from the statement that was made by the present Minister of Aviation on 5th March, 1963. Hon. Members will recall that that was when the HS681 was announced to replace the Beverley and the Hastings planes. After announcing "a substantial share" of the production work for Short & Harland, my right hon. Friend said—and this was in his main, considered statement, and not in a supplementary answer:
… this should provide employment for a production labour force not far below the present level of 6,000 or so until about 1970.
In reply to a question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin), he reiterated:
…as far as the production force is concerned, they can be kept in full employment, or at least up to about the 6,000 level, until the end of the decade.
Those were encouraging and welcome words.
Then the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) queried these figures and said
Is he aware that … it will not be possible to maintain the labour force? In fact it means a reduction by 1965 or 1966 to about 2,400. …
My right hon. Friend hit that on the head by saying
We are in the closest touch with Short Bros. &amp; Harland and I should think we are in the best position to evaluate how the load is likely to lie.
I apologise for reading these four quotations at slightly greater length than I would wish, but I would ask my right hon. Friend, and this is the main burden of my argument to which I attach great importance. Is he in a position today to repeat that assurance which he gave to the House. If he can, it will go a long way towards casting on one side the unfortunate impression created by the management statement on Monday.
If my right hon. Friend is still able to adhere to that statement, as I hope he is, will he explain to the House how it is hoped to maintain that labour force over that period? In my own view the Minister can give this assurance only through the sub-contracting work on the HS681, and I notice with interest that he hinted at its importance yesterday in the House. The present position about this contract is complicated and technical but I would wish to describe it to hon. Members.
At present Hawker Siddeley are in the early stages of making a prototype under a development contract. No production contract has yet been completed but I think that it is expected that one will be signed very soon. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation in that statement on 5th March, 1963, said
We have therefore decided to arrange for a substantial share of the production work on this new aircraft to be sub-contracted to Shorts by the Hawker Siddeley Group."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 210–13.]
Considerable emphasis has been placed on that. I underline the words that my right hon. Friend would arrange "for a substantial share". How much is a substantial share? I would ask my right hon. Friend to confirm that before signing the production contract with Hawker Siddeley the Ministry of Aviation will ensure that the actual percentage share to go to Short Bros. & Harland is written into the contract, as I believe is usually done in this kind of transaction. I ask him to make certain that the largest possible share of this work goes to Short Bros. & Harland and perhaps to give us some indication today in very broad terms of what he is thinking of in this connection.
My view is that there will be great difficulty indeed in redeeming the assurance given by my right hon. Friend to the House to maintain the labour force at 6,000 to the year 1970 unless approximately one-half of this work is given to Short Bros. & Harland. I have outlined the main problems facing the firm. The essential work is for the HS681, but more Belfasts are also needed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) has drawn the attention of the House on many occasions to this. I have left that subject today to concentrate on my


main point and I look forward to my right hon. Friend's reply.

1.55 a.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I propose to intervene very briefly, for two reasons. First, I support the case made by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) on two grounds. In Northern Ireland there is the greatest percentage of unemployment in all Great Britain. It is 8 per cent. It seems to me that, when contracts are being let, the situation of hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of workers in Belfast should be very much in the mind of Ministers. I accept at once that, if the firm of Short Brothers & Harland were not capable of fulfilling the contract, the Minister would have a reason for putting it elsewhere; but all the history and all the record of the firm indicate that it is capable of fulfilling it.
The second ground on which I support the hon. Gentleman is that the principal contract has been given to a great monopoly. The Government have often declared that they are opposed to the retention of monopolies in this country. It is very desirable, when contracts of this kind are let, that the work should be distributed in such a way that the production of weapons is not the monopoly of one firm but is dispersed and diversified among other firms which are equal to the task.
My second purpose in intervening is to make something almost in the nature of a personal statement. When this matter was raised in the House of Commons on 17th March, I asked the Prime Minister whether, when this firm was being considered, he would inquire whether an applicant for employment there was asked about his religion. I concluded my supplementary question by asking,
Will the right hon. Gentleman see that religious discrimination in Northern Ireland in relation to employment is ended?".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 17th March, 1964 Vol. 691, c. 1185.]
When I asked that supplementary question, I had already received a copy of the form of application for employment at Messrs. Short Brothers & Harland, and I sent a photographed copy of that form to the Prime Minister that afternoon. I shall now read to the House the relevant parts of the form. It is headed,

Short Brothers &amp; Harland Limited, Belfast.
Application for Employment—Staff".
Certain particulars, including the religion of the applicant, are requested.
I have today received a letter from Mr. Dennis Wrangham, the chairman of Messrs. Short Brothers & Harland. I think it fair to the firm to read this letter, and I have informed Mr. Wrangham that I would do so tonight at the first opportunity. The letter reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Brockway,
After reading your questions in the House of Commons yesterday. I would like to assure you that no sort of discrimination—religious or racial—is ever practised by this Company.
If your time permits, do please suggest to me one or two dates when we could fetch you over to Belfast to spend a night with us and see round the whole undertaking.
Yours sincerely,
Dennis Wrangham.
I have today written to Mr. Wrangham expressing appreciation of that letter. I welcome his statement that no discrimination on religious or racial grounds is practised at the works of Messrs. Short Brothers & Harland Ltd. of Belfast. I have told him, which is true, that I had been informed by quite responsible and representative persons in Northern Ireland that it is very difficult for a Roman Catholic to obtain a post upon the staff of this company, and I hoped that he would be able to inform me of the number of persons employed on the staff and the number of Roman Catholics among them.
I thought it desirable, at the first possible opportunity, to read to the House this letter from the chairman of this company so that if there has been any misrepresentation on my part it may now be corrected.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I was present when the hon. Member asked that question of the Prime Minister and I attempted to rise to express my concern. In view of what he has said, and the way in which he has withdrawn his remarks, I should like also to withdraw what I said, because I know that these comments have had prominence in my constituency.

Mr. Brockway: It was not in my mind.

2.0 a.m.

Mr. John Farr: I should like briefly to express my regret that it has been found necessary to order helicopters from sources abroad. In thumbing through a copy of the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates, published in 1956ߝ57, one of the items which caught the Committee's eye was that of the 26 military aircraft research projects undertaken between 1945 and 1955, no fewer than ten related to helicopters. It is that, in particular, which has prompted me to intervene, because I want to express my regret that it has been thought necessary, not only to order these helicopters from abroad, but that both the designs which should have been considered were, in fact, American.

2.3 a.m.

Mr. John Cronin: I should first like to express my appreciation, on behalf of my hon. Friends, to the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) for having raised this subject. It is an awkward subject, but I think that all of us, like my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), feel concerned about the high rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland and the very real family tragedies which that represents.
Yet, the troubles of Short Brothers & Harland are, to some extent, a localized form of the rather general dissatisfaction present in the aircraft industry. Things are going far from satisfactorily at present. We often hear of scientists migrating to the United States, but there is not much publicity about the engineers—and especially aircraft engineers—who migrate from this country as an expression of the frustration which they feel over Government policy.
I appreciate that I must confine myself to Short Brothers & Harland; I could say a lot on this matter, but I would join with the hon. Member for Belfast, North in seeking an assurance about what is likely to happen with the sub-contract for work on the Hawker Siddeley 681. It is quite obvious that there is scope for giving a lot of the work to this firm, and I should appreciate anything which we can be told which is more specific on this matter. The Minister should tell us something more about plans for the future for the

supply of a strategic freighter for the Royal Air Force. We all know that the Air Ministry, through the Ministry of Aviation, ordered ten Belfast aircraft in February 1959 from Short Bros & Harland, but there have been no further orders of that nature and there appears to be no promise or suggestion of them.
Having formerly been Secretary of State for Air, the Minister has a thorough knowledge of the problem. He will remember that, as long as three years ago, we used to ask him when the Royal Air Force would be provided with a strategic freighter. It did not have a strategic freighter then, and it still does not have one. We would like to know from the Minister whether the ten strategic freighters which have been ordered from Short Bros & Harland are the limit of the aspirations of the Royal Air Force in equipping itself with strategic freighters.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not say that the Britannia, with which the Royal Air Force transport force is now equipped, is a strategic freighter in any real sense of the word. As he knows, its cargo cross-section is small and it can be loaded only from the side and from ramps. It is unsatisfactory from that point of view although excellent as a passenger-carrying aircraft. Short Bros & Harland have been producing further designs for a strategic freighter. Their latest, the SC541, is of an advanced design which would be equipped with Rolls-Royce Conway by-pass turbo-jet engines. In many ways, it would be comparable with the best strategic freighters available. Can the Minister give us an idea of the Government's intentions for this aircraft? Has it been given serious consideration?
One thing that is certain is that the need for a strategic freighter for the Royal Air Force will become much more acute, particularly when the transport force is unable to fly over the Middle East, as will soon be likely. We will lose the base at El Adem and if we are unable to fly across Libya and the Sudan we shall be in serious difficulties unless we have an adequate supply of strategic freighters. I hope, therefore, that the Minister can give us an idea about the future.
Are the Government asking Short Bros & Harland at least to have a design study to produce more freighters, or will we ask some other firm? As far as I know, no other firm has a design for a strategic freighter. Are the Government thinking, perhaps, in terms of ordering an American machine, such as the Lockheed C141? We have already had the shock of hearing that the Navy is to be completely re-equipped in its fighter squadrons with the Phantom. Do the Government have ideas of ordering American aircraft for strategic freighters? We would like reassurance about this.

Mr. McMaster: Will the hon. Member also bear in mind that many high-ranking staff officers who have visited Short's consider that an order for ten Belfasts is hopelessly inadequate and that irrespective of the jet version to which he has referred, they would like to see an extended version of the Belfast with, perhaps, a larger propeller and greater range and ceiling, and that this would provide more work for the firm?

Mr. Cronin: Yes. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is entirely consistent with my information. It is very important to emphasise that this is not only a matter of dealing with unemployment in Belfast. Short Brothers & Harland is in a position to provide something which the Royal Air Force desperately needs, and no other British firm is in a position to do it.
I leave the subject of strategic freighters and turn to the question of the Skyvan, a small aircraft designed and produced by Short Brothers & Harland. It is very economical and can carry substantial loads over appreciable distances. It is particularly useful in countries where there is a serious transport problem which cannot be met by rail and road.
When I visited Short Brothers & Harland about two years ago I saw the Skyvan and was, naturally impressed by it. So I have made a point of inquiring from Short Brothers & Harland from time to time what has been happening about the project. I understand that earlier last year Short Brothers & Harland was receiving inquiries from potential customers in Alaska, Australia and South America and was on the point of receiv-

ing export orders, but before it could put the Skyvan into production it had to obtain sanction from the Treasury.
The Minister comes out of this in rather a good light, certainly in a less unfavourable light than the Treasury. I am not always in a position to say this about the right hon. Gentleman, and so I welcome this opportunity. Short Brothers & Harland made an application to the Treasury through the Ministry of Aviation in July last year. The situation is that the firm had been asked by potential customers to produce the Skyvan for export. So it applied to the Treasury. There was dead silence from the Treasury. The Minister, although he will not confess it, probably felt some irritation at the long delay.
In January I heard of this delay and wrote to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I received in reply�žhe had been sitting on the project for six months—a somewhat machiavellian letter saying that it was really the responsibility of the Minister of Aviation. I feel that this is one way in which we cannot afford to lose export orders. I know that at last Short Brothers  Harland has received permission to produce the Skyvan, but these potential customers had been obliged to wait eight months before permission to produce the aircraft could be obtained. This is a very unsatisfactory way of trying to get export orders for our aircraft industry.
I turn now to the order for the light helicopter. I think that all of us have understood that the Army has been equally agreeable about having either the Bell or the Hiller helicopter. There was practically nothing to choose between the two in performance. So I think the House has a duty to examine closely the Minister's decision to order the Bell rather than the Hiller. One of the points the Minister made in his statement yesterday was that the Westland tender to produce the Bell under licence was substantially lower than the Short Brothers and Harland tender to produce the Hiller. We should have a reassurance as to whether there will be a genuine economy in accepting this lower tender. Westland is presumably working to full capacity whereas Short's is working at undercapacity. Clearly, if Westland receives the order, Short's overheads, which are of a constant nature, will have to be


charged to a smaller proportion of Government contracts so that the Government will inevitably have to pay more for Shorts products. From the economic point of view, therefore, this is a rather doubtful proposition.
Again, one wonders whether the Westland bid is not something of a "loss leader". Is it possible that it is cutting the price below the appropriate level and intends to make it up in other directions? One hopes that the Government will be watching for this sort of tendency and making sure that prices are reasonable. The right hon. Gentleman has been unlucky recently over prices, so we cannot have the same amount of confidence as we might have had a few months ago. Perhaps he can also reassure us on that.
The other rather odd thing is that the Government are so concerned, apparently, about not placing an order for a higher tender. According to the recent Report of the Estimates Committee, when there was a choice between the Hawker-Siddeley 748 and the Handley-Page Herald he selected the 748 although the R.A.F. preferred the Herald, which was at a lower price. It seems odd, therefore, that the Government should now be so concerned to obtain aircraft at a lower price when these very important circumstances of public policy and support for Shorts are involved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough touched on the perpetuation of the Westland monopoly position. Westland is an excellent firm producing first-class helicopters, but at the same time one cannot help feeling that it is rather unhealthy that it should have a complete monopoly of helicopter production. Before the forced amalgamations carried out in the aircraft industry by the then Minister of Aviation in 1959 and 1960, there were three aircraft companies producing helicopters�žBristol, Saunders-Roe and Westland. Complete monopoly was given to Westland. There have been some complaints about Westland deliveries being sometimes slower than expected. Sometimes there has not been complete satisfaction with the after-sales service. A special inquiry was made recently into troubles with Westland helicopters in the Far East. We all know that all aircraft firms have troubles of

various kinds so there is nothing exceptional about this. But one feels it probable that Westland would perhaps stir itself rather more if it had not this complete monopoly in the production of British helicopters.
The Government claim to be opposed to monopolies in other respects. One of the inducements to hon. Members opposite to accept the Resale Prices Bill is the promise of further action against monopolies. But that does not appear to be the case here. This is a case of strengthening an existing monopoly. I hope that the Minister will address himself to that question, because the position seems to be most unsatisfactory.
There are obvious advantages in the Hiller helicopter, and the Minister will no doubt let us know why these have been ignored. Obviously it will bring work to Northern Ireland, which is particularly desirable, but if the Hiller helicopter had been accepted, Short Brothers  Harland would also have obtained the exclusive rights to sell this product in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, and in the Commonwealth. That would have meant a big increase of work for Short Brothers  Harland, and of course of employment for Northern Ireland. Those are important considerations, and I wonder whether enough thought was given to them.
The other circumstance which I think one should take into consideration is that already this country is using Hiller helicopters, and so far we have not used any Bell helicopters. There is a lot to be said for having some standardization in helicopters. For instance, the Royal Naval Air Service is using the Hiller OH23G for training people at its Culrose training establishment, and the Army is also using it for initial training in helicopter flying. From the point of view of standardization it seems that considerable advantages would have been gained from selecting the Hiller helicopter.
I come to the final, and I think the most important, point, and that is why was it necessary to buy foreign helicopters at all? We have this excellent company, Westland, which makes a wide variety of helicopters. It makes several marks of Whirlwind, Wessex, Belvedere and Wasp. Is the House to


understand that it could not have produced a light helicopter suitable for the requirements of the Army?
The only reason why Westland has not been able to produce this is that it has not received an operational requirement to produce a light helicopter for the Army. We can to some extent absolve the Minister from blame for that, because clearly it is up to the Ministry of Defence to produce an operational requirement for a light helicopter, and this should have been done years ago. The Minister of Defence has obviously been in a state of somnolence about light helicopters, and it was left to the emergency in the Far East, in Borneo and Sarawak, to draw attention to the Army's desperate need for light helicopters.
The United States and France have equipped their armies with similar types of light helicopters for years. It is extraordinary that this country should be backward in that respect, and I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why an operational requirement was not given to Westland, or to some other British firm, for a light helicopter to avoid this unfortunate matter of ordering helicopters from abroad.

Mr. McMaster: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it odd that the Minister himself should put Hiller in touch with Short Brothers  Harland with a view to producing helicopters, and later give as one or two main reasons for not selecting the Hiller that Short Brothers  Harland had no experience in manufacturing helicopters? Surely that is a strange procedure?

Mr. Cronin: It is not entirely unknown for the Minister to act in ways which are not completely comprehensible to everyone in the House. Some of us on this side of the House think that sometimes the Minister shows an adroitness and dexterity in dealing with matters from a political point of view which is not entirely consistent with the frankness that we sometimes expect.
In view of the lateness of the hour, I do not think that I should carry this argument much further. But the House must feel that it is a very serious blow to the prestige and morale of the British aircraft industry that, on top of this order for Phantoms for the Navy, we

have now declared that this light helicopter, manufactured by Italians and designed by Americans, is to be used by the Army, when we have available in this country an aircraft industry second to none. The aircraft industry can rightly feel that it has been let down, and the Minister certainly owes the House a careful and detailed explanation of his decision.

2.25 a.m.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) for having given me this opportunity of expanding a little the statement that I made to the House yesterday. I was glad, too, to hear the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) correct a statement by his hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) that the requirement for a unit light helicopter had been with us for some years. The subject is one in which I have had a great deal of personal interest. When I was at the War Office, six years ago, I was a strong advocate of the adoption of the unit light helicopter, but it is only in very recent times—within the last few months—that this requirement has passed all the hurdles to which our weapons are subjected, and has been accepted as necessary.
It is because this decision has been taken at a time when the operational need has been urgent that we have had to look abroad for a suitable model. I join my hon. Friend in regretting that Westland was not in a position to offer a suitable British model. There was no firm requirement before the firm, and it certainly would have been asking it to gamble to expect it to produce a model on its own initiative. Some may feel that the matter had been sufficiently discussed to encourage the firm—and the investment required is fairly small—to have done a little more work than it has done in this field. But we must accept that, the decision having been delayed as long as it has been, there was no choice before us but to go for a foreign model.
There were three models that might have met the requirement. There was the Hughes. This just measured up to requirements, but left no stretch. It was not powerful enough to meet any extra demand, either for lift or size. There


were then the Hiller and the Bell. Both exceeded the requirements. On technical grounds there was not much to choose between them. The Hiller had the edge in certain respects, and the Bell in others. The Army—the customer—was ready to adopt either.
The hon. Member for Loughborough has noted that the Royal Navy already has some Hillers in service. That was a point in its favour. It is our policy—and it has been accepted by the House—that if it is possible we should standardise our requirements. But the Royal Navy has only about 22 Hillers in service. When we are considering an order which, at a minimum, is 150, the issue of standardisation appears in a rather different perspective, viewed against the fact that the Navy has only 22.
The hon. Member referred to the export prospects that might have accrued to Short's had the Hiller been adopted. There are also some important export aspects to the Bell. The export interest was in fact finely balanced. There was the important issue of employment. We all know how critical unemployment in Northern Ireland has been, but, as the House knows, the question of the helicopter affected only somewhere between 80 and 120 jobs. I am not saying that 80 to 120 jobs is not important, but against the whole background of the problem they are only one consideration. There was then the issue of expertise.

Mr. McMaster: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that with the Hiller helicopter Short's got exclusive rights for Europe, Africa and the Commonwealth, whereas the Bell rights were for Italy only, and have no potential export at all, as far as I can see.

Mr. Amery: Perhaps my hon. Friend will wait a little. I think I shall be dealing with his point in a moment.
I was dealing with the issue of expertise, and the skill which Westland has undoubtedly acquired in the production of helicopters. It is perfectly true that we encouraged the Hiller firm to make contact with Short's. This was, I think, because Westland already had an agreement with Bell, and it was obviously useful to us to have the maximum infor-

mation to see where our interests would lie between the two. But when it came to expertise in the matter—and this is one of the issues, though I do not say the main or decisive one, but one which had weight with us—Westland undoubtedly knew more about helicopter production.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Loughborough has spoken a little critically of the Westland monopoly. He has better reason than most of us to speak critically of helicopters. The argument which, I think, is one permissible on this side of the House, is less so for those who were so closely associated with the advocacy of nationalisation. It reminds one a little of Satan rebuking sin.
But it looks to me�žI think we can say this�žthat the argument between the Bell and Hiller was extremely finely balanced. It was not a very easy decision to take. So we put it out to tender to see what the financial position was, and the Westland bid was substantially cheaper. My hon. Friend asked me what the differential was. It is not the practice to go into details of these things, but if I were to say to him that it was not far from 20 per cent. it would give some idea of the pretty marked difference which came out of the competition.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the decision was on the basis of the final tenders from both parties?

Mr. Amery: There was only one competition tender by both parties. As so often happens in these matters, news leaks out of what one side or the other has done, and there are approaches for giving lower prices, but I think the House appreciates that it is impossible to carry on business on that basis, and that we have to take the figures submitted in the competition. As my hon. Friend will realise, Short Bros  Harland are very dependent at present on taxpayers' support and there is a limit to which the firm can embark on what might be called a "loss leader" approach to these matters.

Mr. McMaster: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the revised estimate Hiller had accepted some reduction in the original price quoted to Short's? This should surely be taken into account.

Mr. Amery: I assure my hon. Friend that it is not possible in these matters when we have competition and state the terms of the competition clearly and precisely for both sides to re-tender several times. Had we allowed a re-tender from one direction we would have had to allow it from the other. This is not the way in which the Government can conduct business. The issue was a critical one no doubt for both firms. They both had an opportunity of tendering on an equal basis.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the price being paid to Westland is the price it submitted in its original tender? Would he confirm that the price that is to be paid to Westland for the Bell Agusta is the initial price it submitted and not a revised price?

Mr. Amery: That is my understanding of the position.
The hon. Member for Loughborough asked whether there is real economy in all this or whether we are simply to be landed with extra overheads from the firm which loses? This could cut both ways. Both firms are working mainly on Government account. Neither is fully employed, so I do not think that is a valid point. The first 50 of these helicopters are to be bought from Agusta where there is an established production line. That is so as to get these 50 helicopters quickly to meet the Army's requirements as soon as possible. Some will be flown direct from the works in Italy to the Middle and the Far East. We are very glad to buy these aircraft from Italy because the Italians are buying a great deal from us in the form of aero-engine exports, running into tens of millions of pounds.
Another 100 helicopters will be ordered from Westland and built over here. The ultimate requirement for the Army and the Royal Marines may be considerably more than this 150. Of course, I and the whole House recognise the natural disappointment felt in Northern Ireland over this issue, but I thought that Mr. Wrangham put it in proportion in his statement today. It is an important issue, but not a major or decisive one in the context of the overall problem facing Short's.
I though that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East put the point very well in his supplementary comment on my statement yesterday. If one looks at the overall picture, no fair-minded person would disagree that the Government have made a considerable contribution to stimulating work at Short's in a period when the aircraft industry generally has been in a process of regrouping and contraction. There has been he £10 million additional grant given for the completion of the Belfast Seacat programmes. There has been the sub-contracting on the R.A.F. VC.10s, which is already under way. There is the sub-contracting proposed on the Hawker Siddeley 681. My hon. Friend asked how much this will be. I am not in a position to say exactly, but we have said that it will be a substantial element. It has to be remembered that in both cases, the subcontracting on the VC10s and the HS681, there will be an additional price to be paid by the Royal Air Force arising from the split in the work. This is a subsidy to the maintenance of employment in Northern Ireland. There is also the support for the development and initial production of the Skyvan.
Although Northern Ireland faces a special problem which is different from that of this island, no other aircraft group has received support from the Government in quite the same way.

Mr. Cronin: On the question of light helicopters, can the right hon. Gentleman say why an operational requirement for a light helicopter was not formulated by the Government and given to the only British firm which could handle it—Westland—a long time ago, several years ago, when the need for a light helicopter has been obvious to other countries for their armies for several years? Why suddenly, just last year, was it decided by us that a light helicopter was essential for our Army?

Mr. Amery: I thought that I had made a considerable concession to the hon. Gentleman in telling him that I had for long been interested in the light helicopter. However, there are priorities, and other things have to be done. It is only in recent months that this priority has been accepted and


established, and the requirement formulated. The hon. Gentleman may criticise this, but it is a valid explanation why we have had to turn at this juncture to foreign sources of supply rather than to our own. I regret that this has happened, but it is so.

Mr. McMaster: I appreciate my right hon. Friend giving way so frequently. Further to his last comments on the sub-contract work on the VC 10 and so on, if the VC 10 order is increased—perhaps for use as a Shackleton replacement—would my right hon. Friend consider placing part of the design work or setting up a second production line at Short's, which would be a very economical thing to do for this aircraft and would maintain the work force at the level which my right hon. Friend has guaranteed?

Mr. Amery: My hon. Friend has infinite resources for advising on new ways by which work may be brought to Short Bros  Harland. I can assure him that everything he says will be carefully studied. I am not in a position to talk about the Shackleton replacement, except in the most hypothetical terms.
I turn to the problem of the future of Short's. The hon. Member for Loughborough asked if there were prospects of more orders for Belfasts and if the R.A.F. wanted more of these aircraft. I have to say that there is now no additional requirement from the R.A.F. Equally, I can assure him that there is no intention of ordering American aircraft in the strategic freighter rôle. He also asked about the Skyvan and why we took so long to make up our mind. The truth is that the latest figures submitted by Short's on which the present decision was taken were available to us only last December. That was a substantially revised estimate, varying from the estimate put forward in the summer by large sums of money.
On the overall future of Short's, I said just over a year ago that I thought the production labour force would not fall far below 6,000. Now it is at about 6,500, and I am leaving aside the design team. Those who have studied the problem will, I think, agree that it will remain a little above or just below the 6,000 level up to the end of 1965.
There is also a substantial measure of agreement that as the Hawker Siddeley 681 programme comes forward—from the middle of 1967—employment should also be maintained around the 6,000 level; not far below that figure at certain periods and, sometimes, a little above it. Thus, between the end of 1965 and the middle of 1967, there may be a gap of about 18 months and it is argued that, if nothing happens to bridge that gap, the labour force could fall to about 4,000. That is on the most pessimistic estimate I have seen. But this pessimistic view is based on a number of assumptions which I do not think the House will be disposed to accept. First of all, it is based on the idea that all existing Belfast and Seacat orders would have been fulfilled precisely on time. Short's have a very good record for delivery, but it does happen in the best aircraft firms that one gets occasional slippages. It also presupposes that there would be no new orders for the Belfast or the Seacat or the Skyvan; my own recent visit to South America encouraged me to think that there was a market there for the Seacat, and the firm has encouraged us to believe that there is a market for the Skyvan. There is also the prospect of other work, not widely discussed or perhaps even considered at present. There may be modifications to existing aircraft—certain marks of the Canberra, perhaps—but there is also the whole prospect of the Shackleton replacement.
I would be misleading the House if I spoke of any firm project at this stage, but hon. Members would, I think, be equally misled if they formed their judgment of the likely level of the labour force on the assumption that no new work will materialise by 1966. On that basis, most of the aircraft firms in the country would be heading for the rocks. So, by and large, I stand by what I said a year ago, that I do not think that the labour force will fall below 6,000 for the rest of the decade, and I hope that that is the assurance my hon. Friend seeks.
Today we celebrated Lord Brabazon's 80th birthday, and I am glad that it should have fallen to me to have the opportunity this evening to pay a personal tribute to him and to his contribution to aviation. In his lifetime we have seen the extraordinary evolution of


air power. The first plane he flew averaged 38 miles an hour, and we have now come to a period when 2,000 miles an hour is about the record that has been achieved by a plane. In this vast expansion Short's have played a distinguished part, and it is my own faith and conviction that their day is far from ended.

Orders of the Day — TENANTS (EVICTION AND INTIMIDATION)

2.48 a.m.

Mr. B. T. Parkin: As I shall no doubt later have harsh words to say to the Minister, I should like to start by expressing my warm personal thanks to him for his unfailing courtesy in every debate we have, and for the effort he has made to turn up now and listen to me.
Thirty-six hours ago, I was happy in the thought that there would be great competition to get into yesterday's major debate, that my own small-ranging contribution would take rather longer than would be fair, and that if I was not to be called I could easily raise the matter tonight. But I must say that something in the Minister's speech yesterday made me think, and the more I think it over the more horrified I am. It causes me now to raise this question of intimidation of tenants, a subject on which the right hon. Gentleman said that he had not received sufficient evidence, in a wider perspective.
What the Minister did yesterday was, first of all, to make the Government's not unexpected announcement—one would not expect this Government to "chicken" on its own policy if it brought electoral danger—not to bring in further measures of decontrol. Then in a calm complacent way the right hon. Gentleman announced the calculated re-endorsement of the policy of creeping decontrol, which has been for the ordinary people in central London the biggest disaster that has ever happened to them in housing, a disaster the facts of which I was willing to believe were unknown to the Minister and other hon. Members opposite. During these years we asked hon. and right hon. Members opposite to believe that what we said was true. We were prepared to believe that it resulted from an error of judg-

ment and that it was a situation of which rascals took advantage and that the Government ought to take action to stop it. We were prepared to believe that in due course the Government would admit that they had made this error.
But, good gracious, this was announced as the reconsidered and re-endorsed policy of the Government. This is a green light for Rachmanism. This, in the framework of the reaction of the Government in the discussion on Rachmanism last July is permission to go ahead. Because Rachmanism is not about plumbing. It is about intimidation and evictions, and nothing has been done by the Government to deal with either of those things since last July. Furthermore, they have practically said that they are not going to do anything now. This is very serious.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph): I controlled myself from interrupting the hon. Member before because I hoped that he was going to narrow his argument. Surely the whole basis of the allegations about Rachmanism has been directed to multi-occupied property, and on multi-occupied property, as the hon. Member well knows. the Government have introduced by Part IV of the Housing Bill now going through the House control order procedure allowing authorities powers of summary intervention for the protection of tenants.
The hon. Member is perfectly entitled to claim, if he can show evidence of intimidation outside multi-occupied property, that the Government have taken no new steps but, as he knows, I have taken them. This presumably is the reference he made when he opened with the statement that I have said that I have no evidence on any scale of intimidation outside multi-occupied property.

Mr. Parkin: We still seem to be in disagreement about the way the criticism was put. I shall come to that later. The Minister of course knows, even if the House does not, that a Second Church Estates Commissioner who happened to be in the Chair in the Standing Committee ruled that landlord-tenant relationship was not within the scope of


the Housing Bill which was going through that Committee.

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member is allowing himself to go very far in linking an outside function of an hon. Member with his rôle as Chairman of a Committee. Chairmen of Committees of the House have to administer the rules of order, whatever those rules of order arc.

Mr. Parkin: An outside function? I think that it is in Vacher. It is a Government appointment. In any case this is not intended to be in any way an indirect attack. This is an hon. Member who is deeply preoccupied with matters of property management, closely associated with and understanding Government policy, and in his position there he had to interpret the rules of order, as the Minister says. But if the rules of order are that in his view that Bill did not embrace the question of landlord-tenant relationship, we are left in the situation that if an Amendment is called on Report it can only hope to strengthen the provisions of the control order. In case that should not come off, I think that I am justified in taking time tonight to raise one or two examples of this kind.
I come back to the point I was making in trying to present a train of thought. I accuse the Minister of having made a statement of Government policy which, in the present framework of the measures envisaged and forecast by the Government, is at fault and inadequate to deal with the problem. I shall go on to explain why.
The Minister was very alert in July in trying to say that this was a local matter, just a question of rascally behaviour by a small group of people which could be easily dealt with. The Government have been very illogical about it because, if that were the case, they should have done something to deal with those particular events. It is still suspicious, to say the least, that the Government have continued to refuse investigations by the Inland Revenue or under the Companies Act into those conspiracies. I could make some very harsh remarks about the Board of Trade in this matter, in the light of detailed technical evidence before it, but it is not my main purpose to chase up a

few criminals and it is certainly not my purpose to keep the House up at night to do that. I want to see what sort of principles and what sort of long-term ideas we can pull out of this dreadful experience.
If it was not a local conspiracy, with no great significance elsewhere, then it was part of a process—this is how I see it—a sort of Grand Guignol caricature of a process which has been developing with macabre inevitability over the century in houses in multiple occupation. I am sure that the uneasiness about the investigations of the Rachman scandal sprang from an anxiety lest those activities compared too closely with the activities of others in the property market.
The Rachman story in that brief period consisted of the well known processes of "de-statting," putting out the statutory tenants, then "sweating." overcrowding and getting tenants in who would pay the highest possible rents. exploiting the sort of tenants who would be willing to pay such high prices. The rents were allowed to accumulate, then the houses were sold, converted or rebuilt. The operators converted themselves into a company, went public, and then got out, leaving the properties in the hands of pensions funds, respectable trade unions and insurance companies.
All this had been going on in areas of this kind for many years. The Rachman scandal simply underlined certain dangers. What the right hon. Gentleman did when he introduced creeping decontrol was to encourage the bad landlord to make himself richer than the good landlord by using devices to get people out of their premises. The Minister thinks I mean intimidation of that kind in houses other than those in multiple occupation; but this is where I have been in dispute with him more than once. My case is that this kind of intimidation takes place in houses in multiple occupation which structurally do not attract the intervention of the local authority's public health department. This is a very important point, and I ask the Minister to consider it. There is a case for looking at houses which are not in ruins and are not even overcrowded.

Sir K. Joseph: I have not said that I do not think there is evidence. I have simply said that I have not got evidence.


I am very willing to receive it if there is any.

Mr. Parkin: I hope that the Minister will accept that I could, without much effort, bring many cases forward.

Sir K. Joseph: I do not accept that, but I am very willing to receive the evidence.

Mr. Parkin: To narrow the point, I have brought one specimen case history, which covers a long period, of a successful attempt to get an elderly invalid ex-officer of the Polish Forces out of a controlled tenancy.
It starts in the classic manner with a threat to cut off the gas. The Minister has heard it all before. The old gentleman is told that the lease has fallen in, that they are going to get him out, and that the gas will be cut off before Christmas. So he sends a registered letter on 9th December, 1959—I know it is ancient history, but it is an example of the sort of thing to which I want to draw the Minister's attention. Then, on 22nd December, 1959, there is a letter from the managing agent of the landlords, referring to a telephone conversation in which the tenant was not prepared to consider the alternative accommodation offered, although he did not inspect those premises, and saying that it was always understood that full possession of the accommodation would be given to them by 25th December. Then there is a reference to Miss G, who previously owned the lease and who will be asked to supply details about his tenancy.
This is a skilful step. They do not see the old chap himself, but "soften him up" with threats of this kind. Then, in the last paragraph of their letter there is the statement that they are offering him six alternative addresses for accommodation. In the last paragraph of the letter of 22nd December the agents point out that he would appear to using the accommodation for business purposes,
in that this address is used on your business notepaper
and pointing out that this is a contravention of the terms of the tenancy. Of course, central Europeans like describing themselves as doctors, or members of some profession, and indicate that on their stationery, but nobody seriously sug-

gested that this gentleman was using the premises for accountancy work.
Then, on 30th December, the landlords' agents are informed by Miss G. that the gentleman
paid for the top floor £2 11 s. a week".
The tenancy commenced in 1948, and the tenant understood that he was taking over a controlled tenancy. The next letter from the landlord is on 5th January, 1960, stating that possession was required, and enclosing a formal notice to quit, expiring on 8th February. There was no reference to a controlled tenancy, but it is stared that an inspection of the accommodation was required, and so on. The notice to quit is in the usual form—just a month's notice. The poor old chap replies that he is surprised, because he has a controlled tenancy, and security of tenure, and that he cannot go because he wishes to retain his tenancy and does not want to accept the alternative accommodation. He is happy in his present flat.
On 20th January he repeats that he is a controlled tenant and does not want alternative accommodation, and sends a cheque for one month's rent up to 25th January. But then, he has a lawyer's letter about obtaining possession of the top floor flat, and acknowledging a cheque for £8 6s. 8d. and adding:
We are writing to inform you that as our clients are contemplating proceedings against you, we are accepting your cheque without prejudice to their rights or remedies in this matter.
Is this evidence that I should send to the Milner Holland Committee?

Sir K. Joseph: Certainly.

Mr. Parkin: I am glad to hear that because it is what the Second Church Estates Commissioner said to me yesterday afternoon.
The managers then offered him a tenancy in a rearby house for three years. He wrote back and said that he did not want it and was quite happy with his present flat. He stated:
As I have a controlled tenancy, I understand I am within my legal rights in retaining it as long as I wish to.
He went on to say, as so many of them say in the end—because this had been


going on from December to May; they were working on him:
If I were in a financial position to buy a house, I would do so to prevent any more of this irksome correspondence.
That is what they say in the end. They give up.
Next came the summons in the Marylebone County Court. The summons was defective, because it had the wrong address. Nobody spotted that.

Sir K. Joseph: A summons for what?

Mr. Parkin: It was as follows:
You are hereby summoned to appear at Marylebone County Court.
The plaintiff claims possession of top floor flat—at 54 Blomfield Road.
It was, in fact, 34 Blomfield Road. I do not know whether, at this late date, that would make any difference to the judgment. That, however, was the summons, for vacant possession of a flat at the wrong address.
The summons continued with the plaintiff's particulars of claim:
The Church Commissioners for England and Altoni Kalinowski.… The plaintiffs claim and are entitled to possession of a dwelling house comprising the top floor flat of premises known as and situated at 34 Blomfield Road.
The address was corrected in the particulars of claim.
The said dwelling house was let to the defendant on a parol weekly tenancy in or about 1948.… The said lease expired by effluxion of time on the 25th day of December and the defendant's said tenancy was thereby terminated.
Of course it was not. It was a controlled tenancy. It was not terminated by the fact that the lease terminated.
Alternatively the plaintiffs by their agents duly determined the said tenancy on the 8th day of February, 1960, by notice to quit dated the 5th day of January, 1960.
The ground on which the plaintiffs claim possession is that suitable alternative accommodation is available for the defendant.
The Archbishop did not want to live in it. This was a commercial transaction. There was no claim of greater hardship. This was not an owner asking for occupation for himself. There was no legal ground for the claim. It was simply that the owners would like possession because they were offering alternative accommodation.
Here we come to the fascinating point as indicating the state of opinion at that

time. The poor man instructed his solicitors and counsel and he set out his own arguments, as he had set them out in the letters. He had a controlled tenancy and he did not have to give it up. The solicitors said to him:
Dear Sir, We now have an opinion from counsel and shall be glad to know if you can come in tomorrow morning.

Sir K. Joseph: This was from his own solicitors?

Mr. Parkin: Yes. the tenant's solicitors. They had got counsel's opinion. They said, in effect, "We have prevailed upon the landlords to increase the offer from three years to seven years. They will give you a seven-year lease. Counsel says that the judge will rule against you. He does not want to appear. The court will grant possession if they offer seven years." It went through and there was judgment against the man. So he went into the tenancy which is uncontrolled. Because I have quoted the case tonight, he is not likely to get a renewal—is he?—unless I ask Lord Silsoe, as I do now, through HANSARD or through the Minister, not to take it out of this old chap because I have procured this correspondence.
I have used the case because I wanted an example to show the Minister that this kind of thing happens. None of the characters was going to line his pockets. There was no one in this little tragedy who was going to make a packet out of it. It was a combination of managers and solicitors thinking that they were carrying out the directives given them by the Church Commissioners. To manage their property in the most profitable way, they thought it was their duty to set about clearing out the tenants. This is what we have to discuss. It is far beyond the activities of Alsatian dogs, people fiddling Income Tax and so on. This was the mood. After the Rent Act managers wanted to get possession, and they have got it this way.
I have three lawyers' letters here. One can play a three-card trick with them—"Find the lady" or "Who sent which?" They are in almost identical terms. There is one from the Church Commissioners which I have quoted already on a previous occasion, and I will not repeat it. It is just notice to


give up possession within seven days. One says:
As solicitors and agents on behalf of… Property Company Ltd., your landlord, we hereby require you to quit and deliver up to us …".
Another one says:
We, the undersigned—as solicitors and agents for and on behalf of the landlord, … Esq., hereby give you notice to quit and deliver up to him … possession of the unfurnished premises …".
This is the standard practice Rachman letter, an example drawn at random. In this case Mr. Blank was not the landlord. It was one of the houses shifted from one company to another.
In the case of the other letters that I read the solicitor did not reveal that his client was his father and that he himself was a director of the property company on whose behalf he was acting. Nor did he reveal what he knew and what the tenant did not know—that his father's company received a substantial sum in consideration of rehousing the man from a controlled dwelling. The Rachman example also happened to refer to somebody who had been misled into moving from the basement to the ground floor on the assurance that he would remain there at the same rent.
I submit that all these letters are, in fact, conspiracies to demand with menaces with intent to steal, and that these characters ought to be in the dock and charged with that offence. This is a habit which has got to stop—these bogus lawyers' letters, this assumption of authority where there is no authority. But without any immediate hope of seeing these characters in the dock, I suggest to the Minister that there is one thing that he can do in this respect.
Will he have some work done in his Ministry to devise a formula which can be stuck into an ordinary rent book transferring to a new tenancy the elements of control which were in the previous one? Behind all these tragedies and rows that we have here there is this nub of plausibility, that we need more mobility in re-arranging tenancies if we are to get improvement of houses. There are cases after cases where if only it could be arranged that someone could move into another flat of a similar character, improvements and amenities could be dealt with. We must have

mobility if we are to use space to the best advantage and improve old houses.
Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Ministry to provide this formula. It is beyond the wit of the lawyers. It is extremely difficult to devise a legal document which gives the tenant who moves from one flat to another exactly the same rights as he had before. If that could be done it would be one of the little things which would make it much easier for the decent landlord to suggest to a tenant that he might like to move. At the moment, however, such a suggestion is alarming to the tenant.
Anyone at present who is invited by his landlord to move is liable to be terror stricken in the belief that this is an intention to get him out in order to get the controlled tenancy away from from him. The tenant nowadays is afraid of everything that the landlord may do but if such a formula could be devised, registered by the local authority and recognised as an open deal we could get more of the mobility we need.
Next I come to the actual evictions which persecution and intimidation are intended to achieve. It is a great responsibility to introduce a Measure to deal with this. A Private Member's Bill under the Ten-Minute Rule is not a very rewarding procedure. If hon. Members do not vote against the Motion it is not be taken as evidence that they agree with the Bill but simply that they do not want to be labelled as disagreeing with it.
Surely, in the present climate of public opinion, we have reached the stage where people should not be allowed to be dumped into the start without previous provision being made for their accommodation. That surely must be made law in the near future. But a great deal of work has to be done before that is feasible, and we must have a system applicable to all private landlords, big and small, and to the local authorities, whose tenants must also be given security of tenure.
Not only from the Opposition but from the right hon. Gentleman himself we now have exhortations to the local authorities to increase their housing stock. Even in his policy it is considered right for them to extend their activities and that means that they must brush


away all the cobwebs—the view, for example, that their housing is only for a small section of the community. They must get rid of silly regulations about whether people are allowed to keep budgerigars or about hedges being clipped in one way or another, with only the one sanction—eviction.
That sort of thing must go. Other methods of discipline must be found—perhaps by moving a tenant into a flat not as good as his old one if he does not behave himself. Of course we must have a way of dealing with bad tenants, for it is no use denying that there are bad tenants. But surely there is some way of bringing them to book without imposing the death penalty on the home—above all chucking the wife and children into the street. That is grotesque and out of date.
We have a lot of work to do before we can get this worked out into a system of law applying equally to private landlords and local authorities. Some landlords have begun to set a good example. I found an alarming instance in property owned by the Church Commissioners involving a lawyer's letter. They were horrified and issued an apology. Lord Silsoe assured me that it had not happened before and would not happen again. But Lord Silsoe does not know. He believes it when he says that no such letters go out. He has to be pushed to look at the matter again.
He believes it, and so do the parishioners who are told that the Church Commissioners have never resorted to court proceedings. But I have here a photostat copy of a summons issued by them. They must find out more about it. They have been property owners for a very long time, and they are in a position to make a constructive contribution to this technique of management by other than local authorities. I hope that they will join in.
They first said that they were willing to state that they would never evict, and then there was that small modification that they wished to re-state their policy. But it is no good re-stating a policy if if does not work anyway. That is not good enough. But the good intention was there. An example was set and I think that they will go on working towards it.

Many local authorities have accepted these responsibilities. In my constituency the L.C.C. recently took over a dreadful place, the Walterton Estate, the freehold of which it had bought from the Church Commissioners. A number of the houses had been in multiple occupation, and during the last few years of the leases unmentionable things had taken place in them. People were doing as much fiddling as they could to ensure a tenancy under the L.C.C. when the houses were pulled down. The L.C.C. has taken over these properties, and is reconditioning them as fast as it can.
Then came a little alarm that the L.C.C. was asking about half a dozen single tenants to go. Some of them had the shakiest right to a tenancy in the first place, and they are the people who could most easily find accommodation for themselves. The L.C.C. does not, as a matter of policy, offer accommodation in flats to single people, but in tune with what is felt to be a change in public opinion, it has accepted the responsibility of housing these people.
That is a hard thing to ask, because in order to house them the L.C.C. must be able to purchase a house which is capable of being divided into single room flatlets. if it were to offer to put those people into flats I would protest, because they would be withholding a flat from some family on the waiting list.
It is not an easy problem to solve, but one goes some way towards solving it if one accepts the principle and works towards it. The L.C.C. has performed wonders on that estate, but people expect the damage of 100 years to be undone in 100 days. It has settled 1,000 tenants on that estate, with lower rents and proper amenities.
Surely we have to work towards the stage where the same principle applies to public and private property, and to the large and small landlord. We have to break through this bloody-minded deadlock between landlord and tenant which has become the psychological bogy of our debates and of the relationship between tenant and landlord. Some tenants feel that they ought not to do anything at all to the house in which they live because that would be helping the landlord. We must do away with trivialities of that kind.
That is what saddens me, and that is why I am protesting against the Minister's announcement yesterday as if it was a good thing to go ahead with this policy. I am saddened because I thought that we had gone a long way towards solving the problem. I am saddened because I thought that something useful had happened as a result of the final revelation of what had been going on in my constituency, and more particularly in neighbouring constituencies, over a period of years.
We have had a setback. I hope that the Minister will get back into step and appreciate that much more is needed, and that this can be achieved only by a change in his policy on security of tenure. He must be much more emphatic in the lead he gives on the subject of intimidation and eviction. He should announce as a long-term objective what I would announce as a short-term objective—there should be no evictions without a court order; that no court order should be implemented until alternative accommodation is available; such accommodation to include accommodation offered by a welfare department for the rehabilitation of genuine problem families. Public opinion will demand that in the end, and we have to fashion the implements which can make it practicable.
I realise that the hour is late, although I should like to start my speech all over again. I should like to assume that all the problems to which I have referred were either solved or were on the way to being solved. Then only can we proceed towards a reconsideration of what I believe to be the real and most important lesson than Rachmanism has to teach us—the lesson that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government must be renamed. We have spent too much time talking about houses and housing and not enough time talking about people. The finest parts of my speeches are those which are ruled out of order by the Chair, because it is impossible to discuss housing in relation only to the provisions of the Ministry of Housing. What Rachmanism has revealed to us is that Beveridge has to be rewritten. I am talking now to the Fellow of All Souls who did so much work on studying the principles of the social services and leading his

party into their new policy and their new attitude to it.
Beveridge would never do it again in that way. It was a most unfortunate thing that we were allowed to build into those welfare services the devices which would have been so useful in the 'thirties, when the main inefficiency in this country was industrial inefficiency. All the unpredictable hazards that Beveridge sought to provide against arose from industrial inefficiency—unemployment, and other things that have now been largely conquered.
It is astonishing to contemplate the amount of progress made in this respect—the understanding of economics; the improvement of relations between management and workers in industry—and to compare it with the failure to deal with the new rogue factor, which is now social inefficiency. The rogue factor now is primarily the security of tenure of the home. The amount of rent paid determines whether for instance what is paid in unemployment benefit is adequate to take a worker through a short period of unemployment.
We could make some progress in this field if the Ministry of Housing were to become a Ministry of Social Efficiency, when we could have an annual survey, debated in the House on a proper occasion, not at half-past three in the morning. The Government could tell us how they think we are doing in one department compared with another of the social services, and could describe the layout for the next year or two's work. We could then debate the fundamental lessons to be learnt from the dreadful events which have had to be dragged into the public view—which the public has seen, which it has regarded with horror, and will begin to think about.
I hope that this House and the Government—who reflect the composition of this House—will not fall behind the demands of public opinion for greater social efficiency.
3.30 a.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph): I am grateful for the personal words of courtesy with which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) began his speech. The conditions of which he


has been speaking reflect the state of shortage of houses in the big cities, and they reflect also the distortion which exists because of the accumulation of laws, including rent control, introduced to protect tenants during a period of shortage. The removal both of shortage and of distortions is a much more delicate and difficult business than imposing controls. I am quite sure that as we remove the shortage and as gradually we remove the distortion, the conditions about which the hon. Gentleman rightly complains will cease to exist.
The hon. Gentleman spoke as if creeping decontrol itself created a new temptation and a new opportunity for the exploitation of tenants, but in fact, of course, the opportunity and the temptation are there whether there is rent control or not. When rent control was virtually universal for all property under a certain rateable value the temptation to the landlord—to the few landlords concerned—was to obtain vacant possession in order to sell the property. The landlord would not be tempted to relet the property because at that time all relet property was subject to rent control. But the temptation to obtain vacant possession for one reason or another was still strong, because what maintained a high price, in the conditions of the even greater shortage of those days, was vacant possession on sale. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny this because—I took down his words—"Rachmanism—all this", he said, "had been going on for years".
When rent control ceases to be universal over whole blocks of property under a certain rateable value, and some of it is subject to creeping decontrol, that is to say, to decontrol on the death or voluntary movement—or, in some few cases, the enforced movement, I regret to say, of the tenant—then the temptation to the landlord to obtain vacant possession still remains; but now he has a choice. He can either sell the property or he can let it at a higher price. Therefore, in a condition of shortage there will always be a temptation to some landlords to obtain vacant possession, either to sell or to let, and the total removal of rent control does not alter that temptation and opportunity.
The hon. Gentleman based his argument this evening on one case, and I was grateful to him for going through it

at some length. Of course, as he himself knows and agrees, it is perfectly proper for a landlord to offer alternative accommodation to a tenant. But I must say that I regard it as only proper for the landlord to do so if the transaction is conducted openly with no suppression of rights or implications. It is not the landlord's job to give the tenant legal advice, but I think that the tenant is entitled to expect that the landlord will at least expose, in his offer to the tenant, the tenant's position.

Mr. Parkin: This is a small but terribly important point. In this case the tenant had only just become the tenant of that particular landlord. Would not the Minister agree that the reasonable thing to do would be, not to give legal advice, but to say, "Miss X has lost her lease of this house. We are now the landlords. Don't worry, we are having a look at the tenancies, what is yours?" and explain what the tenant's rights are? Surely there is a difference between not giving legal advice and starting from an assumption of hostility? Surely the civilised procedure should be to put the man's mind at rest and to say, "Dont worry, we will look at it"?

Sir K. Joseph: I would certainly accept that any landlord who respects his reputation for decent dealing would see to it that no relevant crucial facts were suppressed, but I cannot believe that the landlords the hon. Member has quoted were aware of the suppression of facts—if they were suppressed. The House will appreciate that my difficulty is that I cannot be expected—nor should I be—to give a judgment on a transaction spread out over a number of months and involving a large number of letters without more study. I would be glad if the hon. Member would send me the file of this case so that I can at leisure look into the correspondence and see if there are any conclusions I should like to draw.
The hon. Member on the basis of that case—and I do not deny that there may be others, the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) has sent me three examples—has erected a very large allegation, namely that there is intimidation on a substantial scale in property that is not multi-occupied. Despite his opening remarks, the hon. Member must agree that the Government in Part IV of


the Housing Bill have initiated action which should broadly deal with intimidation where it exists, and if it exists, in multi-occupied property. What he is now asserting is that this intimidation also exists in property which is in occupation by a single family.

Mr. Parkin: The right hon. Gentleman should not press that point unduly. He ought to know that in 10 years I have not mentioned a house other than one in multiple occupation. I repeat what I have tried to explain to him. That was why I chose this example. This was not a house which would have attracted the attention of the local authority in any respect. It was in perfectly good order and the amenities would be adequate, but the landlords' agents, thinking, to do their duty by their masters, chose this sort of psychological built up of intimidation which is very difficult to combat.

Sir K. Joseph: I accept that the hon. Member is giving an example which would fall outside the scope of Part IV of the present Bill. What I am not prepared to accept is that this sort of case exists on a substantial enough scale to justify a change in the law. I am willing to accept evidence—in fact without waiting for further evidence, I am willing now to look once again to see if we can improve on the regulations about what should go into the rent book. It may be that we can slightly improve the protection of the more ignorant tenant by looking again at the regulations, and that I shall do.
The hon. Member rightly stressed the importance of mobility and the importance during a period of urban renewal of enabling people to be moved in a civilised fashion to alternative accommodation. This is a matter which can be taken through the courts and there is there a way for the landlord to offer satisfactory alternative accommodation. When the hon. Gentleman goes on to his oft-repeated but sound concern about evictions, I must tell him that I do not think it would be sensible to try to make any more on this—even if we knew what the right move should be and, frankly, I do not—until the Milner Holland Committee has reported.
The hon. Gentleman rightly accepts the need for mobility and for reasonable tenants as well as reasonable land-

lords. I, on my side, accept the need to look again at the question of eviction to reduce the barbarity with which it is sometimes accompanied. But, having set up a very powerful Committee, and the report being imminent in a matter of months,  think we must wait to see what conclusions that Committee conies to on the facts before deciding what is the right step, if any, we should take.
I must conclude by returning to the basic fact that only when there are enough dwellings for householders, and when the major distortions of rent have been ironed out, will we get back to the healthy relationship between landlord and tenant which the hon. Gentleman so rightly desires. I lay claim to one thing at this hour in the morning; that what the Government published yesterday, the South-East Study and the White Paper connected with it, brings nearer the hope of bringing to an end the intolerable pressures caused by the shortage of houses in the metropolis.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — GRAMMAR SCHOOL PLACES, SURREY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

3.42 a.m.

Mr. Clifford Kenyon: Had some courtesy been shown to a constituent of mine by the Surrey Education Authority it would not have been necessary for me to have raised this subject this morning. The case arose when the family in question moved from Leyland, in Lancashire, to Surrey. There were two children, both of school age. The girl had been attending the Leyland Grammar School for three years and she was accepted into the Surrey Grammar School without question. The boy had been selected for attendance at grammar school in Lancashire but, when he came to Surrey, he was not accepted as a suitable pupil to attend the grammar school there.
I might explain that there is a difference in the method of selection in the two counties. In Lancashire a child is selected for attendance at grammar


school by a panel of teachers who examine the results of the child's work over four years. In Surrey a child is examined for grammar school in a two-day examination, the children with the highest marks being selected for attendance at grammar school.
My constituent was selected for grammar school in Lancashire. There is an agreement between all education authorities that they will take into their schools children from other areas, and this agreement covers an interchange of places. It was fully expected that the boy about whom I am speaking, having been accepted by Lancashire after careful examination by a selection panel there, would have been accepted in Surrey.
When the boy came to Surrey, however, the authorities here looked at his last year's results only. It so happened that during that year he was ill for a considerable time, and the teacher who had taught him, with other scholars, during the four years, suddenly became ill and died. The upshot was that the boy's results in that last year were not as good as they ought to have been—we admit that—but, taken over the four years, they were quite good. When one compares the marks obtained by this boy with those obtained by his sister—the sister who has been accepted in the grammar school—one finds them to be almost identical. The boy is refused admittance to a grammar school in Surrey but his sister is taken into a grammar school, although the marks of the two children are almost the same.
We would have had no grumble about the position if the father of these two children could have talked the matter over with the education officers for Surrey; could have discussed the position with them, and heard their reasons for refusing to have the boy. But he has never been able to see these people face to face and discuss the position with them. They just refused the boy, and declined to have anything whatsoever to do with the parents. Nor would there have been any complaint if the boy had been examined in Surrey, but he has never been examined—he has never been seen, but he is demoted.
If this boy had remained in Lancashire, had entered into a grammar

school for which he was selected, had remained there until Christmas of this year, and the family had then come to Surrey, he would have been taken into the grammar school in Surrey without difficulty. But when the father pointed that out to the people he saw, they said, "Yes, but if you had to do it now we would not accept him. We would not accept him if he was in the grammar school for two or three years now." Yet if he had gone into the grammar school in Lancashire before coming here, he would have gone in along with his sister.
If the family now move out of Surrey to another county this boy will be classed as a scholar in a bilateral school, not a grammar school. He cannot move out of Surrey into a grammar school, although he could have moved out of the school in Lancashire into a grammar school in another area.
This is demoting the boy for the whole of his school career and I do not think that anyone should have the power to do that. This is the greatest abuse of power. Moreover, the agreement which exists between education authorities throughout the country was agreed in part in order to prevent this sort of situation arising. It was also agreed so that the position of any child should be sustained in any part of the country at the level which he held in this home county. I say quite frankly that in this case Surrey is not keeping this agreement.
Let me call attention to the view which one of the assistants whom the father saw in Surrey put to him. He used, in these or very similar words, the argument that the standard of intelligence of Surrey children, the standard of entry into Surrey grammar schools, and the standards of tuition in those grammar schools were higher than those in any other county. While other counties were prepared to accept interchange of grammar school places, Surrey found it necessary to discriminate against the lower standards elsewhere.
I say that this is utter nonsense and absolute rubbish. Anyone who knows the education system of the country and knows of Surrey children moving out of Surrey to other areas knows that their scholastic ability is the average of children in the other areas. It is not better and it is no worse. To say that the intelligence of Surrey children is


higher than that of children in other counties is an absolute insult to children in other counties. The statement ought never to have been made by a responsible person. No one could make a statement like that unless he had experience in every other county.
It would be invidious for me to quote instances of Surrey children who have moved to other areas, which I could do from my own experience. I could have understood the attitude of the Surrey people if they had given the boy an examination, but they took one year out of context and down-graded him on that year, when the Lancashire selection panel took four years.
When I took the matter up with the Minister in October, he went into the question fairly fully and sent me a letter on 17th October, of which the Parliamentary Secretary will have a copy. Throughout the whole of the letter the Minister writes on the assumption that the education given in any school in Surrey designated as a grammar school education is similar to and of equal standard to that given in a grammar school. He points out that difficulties are bound to arise between counties if one discusses this position only in terms of grammar schools and not of academic courses, because all local authorities do not provide their academic courses in schools which are called grammar schools.
If we were to have the assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary this morning that this boy is receiving in the bilateral school to which he has been sent an education which is equal to that given in a grammar school these parents would be satisfied. I take it from the Minister's letter that that is the case. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to confirm it. The letter says:
Children who fail to secure a place in the school of their parents' choice are offered places in other schools offering education of grammar standard".
Will the Parliamentary Secretary confirm tonight that the education which this boy is receiving in a bilateral school is of grammar school standard? The clear inference from the whole of that letter is that the boy is receiving grammar school education. The inference is that Surrey has not the number of grammar schools necessary to meet the number of children who can qualify for

a grammar education, and they overflow into the bilateral schools, receiving there an equal standard of grammar education. The only difference is in the type of school, not in the standard of education given.
In the discussion with the father, one of the assistant officers of the education department used as an argument for not putting the boy in a grammar school that the boy's standard of intelligence was such that he could not keep up with a Surrey grammar school education and Surrey was doing the boy a kindness in putting him into a lower grade school where the pace was not so hot. How does that statement tie in with the letter from the Minister which says that the boy is receiving a grammar school education?
This boy has been in the bilateral school for one term, and he has taken one term's examinations. What was the result? He is the second boy of the school and the top boy in his class. This proves quite conclusively either that the education which the boy is receiving in this school is not of grammar standard or that he is capable of taking a grammar school education and would qualify for it in any examination which Surrey could give him. Which is correct?
I feel that I must quote again from the statements made by the assistant in the education department. He said that they were able to assess absolutely and uniquely the standard of a child's intelligence from the fourth-year test, whether the child was aware that this was his only chance of entry into a grammar school or not. He said that the result of the test was always the same.
I contest statements of this kind made about a boy they had not seen, whom they had never tested, and whom they assessed on one year's working. I ask the Minister to give me three assurances. First, if it is possible for him tonight to say that he would reconsider this case and also ask the Surrey Education Authority to reconsider it carefully, sympathetically, and genuinely and, if possible—and I claim that it is possible—to give this boy the opportunity of moving out of the bilateral school at the end of the Easter term into


the grammar school. Then the matter would be settled.
When I took up this matter in the first place, I got on to one of the officials of the Ministry of Education here and he informed me that one of the main reasons why the boy was not put into a grammar school was that there were no places; that 174 had applied to enter the grammar school nearest to the boy's home, and that only 94 could be taken. Surrey children were unable to enter this grammar school, and this boy could not be put in for that reason. Yet I have a letter here, written only last week, which states that the Surrey local education authority has always a reserve of empty places for transfers from other areas and I ask the Minister to see that one of those places is occupied by this boy.
Will the Minister say that this boy is now receiving grammar school standard education and that his exclusion from the grammar school will not affect him detrimentally if he moves from the area, and that, in view of the boy's demonstrated ability, the Surrey authority will put him into a grammar school where there are now empty places?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Christopher Chataway): The hon. Member has been able to raise the case of his constituent without mentioning his child's name, and I should like to say straight away that in many other cases we might follow his example. It seems an unhappy thing that the name of a child should be given publicity in circumstances which may be embarrassing or even harmful to that child.
The hon. Member has had a long correspondence with the Minister over this matter, and it has been explained, both to the parents and to the hon. Gentleman that local education authorities have a large measure of freedom in determining both the way in which their secondary organisation is arranged, and the means by which they carry out the selection procedures which are necessary. It has been explained that the Minister can intervene only where he is satisfied that the behaviour of a local education authority has been unreasonable.
In this instance we certainly could not feel that the action of the Surrey County Council has been in any way unreasonable. I do not think that, in the few minutes at my disposal I can go into the means by which both Lanes and Surrey carry out their tests and make their selections for grammar schools. But perhaps I should say that, in Surrey, if a child has a mark in the Moray House test—which operates also in Lancs—of less than 345 he, in the normal course of events, goes to a secondary modern school.
The child with whom the hon. Member is concerned had in Lanes a mark of 340. This was sufficient in Lanes for him to be admitted to a grammar school but in Surrey, in the ordinary course of events, it would have resulted in his going to secondary modern school.
Both in Surrey and Lanes the placing of children at 11 is, I am glad to say, not done entirely on the basis of written tests. It is done also on the basis of the teachers' records and the child's achievements over a period. But Surrey has, in this instance, made to the hon. Member's constituent the offer of a grammar place and that brings me to his question of whether the education the child is receiving is a grammar education.
The answer to that is "Yes". My right hon. Friend has made it clear that Surrey organises its grammar provision both in grammar schools and in bilateral schools. I find it unfortunate that the hon. Member should have used the word "demote" on a number of occasions and that he should have suggested that a child who finds himself in a bilateral school is bound to have fewer opportunities than a child in a grammar school.
This I would contest. In many counties there is a move towards comprehensive education. If this child had moved to London, for instance, where again the number of places in the grammar schools is limited but where there are opportunities for pursuing advanced academic work in comprehensive schools, he would almost certainly have been placed in a comprehensive school.
In Surrey he is being placed in a bilateral school but is none the less


receiving a grammar education and I believe that it is no service to the child or to the status of these schools to suggest that it is impossible to carry on serious academic work otherwise than in a grammar school.
The hon. Member asked, secondly, what would happen if the family were now to move from Surrey to another county. If they do, Surrey will forward to the new authority all the information which it received from Lancashire about the child's results in the Lancashire tests, together with any information which Surrey may have about his progress since. Whether he would then be moved into a grammar, a comprehensive or a bilateral school would depend upon the way in which education was organised in the county to which he went.
The point which I wish to make with all the emphasis I can is that what matters most is surely the education that

a child receives. It matters far more than the label that happens to be placed upon the school where that education is given.
My right hon. Friend is satisfied that in this cafe Surrey has treated the parents—the hon. Member's constituents—fairly and has abided by the practice by which authorities accept each other's assessments of a child's suitability for a grammar education. Surrey has placed the child in a bilateral school, where he is receiving a grammar education, and I hope that he will, as a result, reach the high academic attainments that has present performance suggests is within his capability. This is not, however, an instance when my right hon. Friend could intervene on the ground that a local education authority had acted unreasonably.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past Four o'clock a.m.